FEBRUARY 2022

Having returned to Kenya at the end of January the last few weeks have been back to full steam ahead. The boys have been back in school, Sean has been busy at Cornerstone Preparatory Academy and Rachel has been managing things at home while offering admin support at Naomi's Village. As we moved into February the rainy season came and, although it might sound trite, we are extremely happy to report that after waiting for nearly 14 months, we finally have our car! The roads can be particularly treacherous after the rain so we are grateful to have a vehicle that can cope with the conditions. Previously we have been stuck in the mud and needed to be pulled out of ditches so it was nice to be able to be the one doing the rescuing this time round as we pulled out our first vehicle!

During the pandemic schools in Kenya were closed for a year which has had a lasting impact and knock on effect as the Ministry of Education tries to play catch up. It means that this year a new academic year will start in April with the following one beginning in January 2023. In order to prepare for a new intake of students at LEAP pre-school the social workers and community engagement staff carry out a Poverty Assessment to identify students in the community most at risk and therefore eligible for a place at LEAP and then Cornerstone Preparatory Academy. Some of the questions used in the assessment offer a stark reminder of the generational poverty facing this community. Each answer carries a score to create a total which is then used to inform any decisions.

Describe the household food security according to your observations. Consider the Physical appearance of children as an indicator of nutritional status:

Healthy/Active/Normal - Mild Signs of Malnutrition - Extreme signs of Malnutrition

Describe the materials used to construct the house.

Permanent(bricks/stone) - Semi-permanent (Wooden/Iron-sheets) - Temporal (Mud, cow dung)

Describe the source of water in the household.

Tapped water - Permanent borehole - Rain water - Buying from a water vendor

Distance covered to the water source.

1 KM or less - 2 KMs - Over 2 KMs

At the end of the month schools in Kenya closed for mid-term. This meant that the social work department conducted a food distribution process for our 200+ families. This included the families from LEAP pre-school and Cornerstone Preparatory Academy, as well as the families we work with as part of the community outreach programmes MTOTO and MAENDELEO. You can find out about these initiatives on the Naomi's Village website. The difficulties and the backgrounds faced by the children reminds us of why we are here. We long to see these children grow up educated, equipped and empowered to change their communities and this nation. We want to see the chains of generational poverty broken and families living with autonomy and agency, no longer bound by the limitations that come with extreme poverty. Of course this will not happen overnight but we continue to "fight the good fight of faith." 1 Tim 6:12.