The photograph above shows the class of ‘23 studying for their final exams. For a short period, school days were long, starting at 6am and finishing at 9pm!

2023 has been another tough year for the Maasai community where our charity works. After 2.5 years of drought, the rains arrived fleetingly in April, and then fully in November. While the land has now turned green, nearly all the cows and goats, which would normally provide a source of income to the community, sadly died due to the drought. Animal stocks now need to be rebuilt from scratch. There are hardly any jobs, little earning potential, and this is compounded by huge rises in food costs. Many parents have really struggled to feed their families this year.

Despite these hardships, our primary school has continued to thrive. As well as receiving a good healthy daily meal, the children continue to receive a great education in a safe environment at the Osiligi school. In November, the eldest class sat the national exams, and produced the second highest scores in the sub-county, smashing the previous school record! They worked so hard for this, as did the teachers, so the marks rewarded them for their efforts. Around half the class achieved such good results that they will be eligible for the top National secondary schools.  We have a new head-teacher, Rispa, who was promoted to this role in May, and who has already made positive impact on the school.

Last year, the Osiligi Obaya school was chosen to host a Junior Secondary school. We have just completed the first full year. It comes with a brand new, much more practical curriculum. The photos below show some of the resources that the charity bought to support their learning. Some of these are quite novel to the pupils!

The Junior Secondary pupils enjoying their new equipment

In order to cover the increased costs of running the school and provide welfare for our pupils, most of our primary school sponsors are now paying £20 per month. If you have not yet increased your standing order, we would really appreciate your help by doing this from January 2024. Also please could all sponsors make sure that your payment has the reference of your surname, first name, and your sponsored child’s name  – thank you.

We are also looking for new sponsors for a new class of four year old children to start at the school. Please let us know if you, or you know of anyone who might be interested in sponsoring a child…..

The older students, who we sponsor to attend senior secondary schools around Kenya, returned home at the end of October for their long Christmas holidays. Some can fall behind at secondary school as they are often excluded from additional classes that the wealthy children pay extra for. So to bring them up to speed, and to keep the girls safe during the long holidays, we provide them all with extra tuition at the Osiligi school. They have just completed four weeks of such tuition.

One valuable initiative that our volunteer Tracey introduced this year is Eripare, the Maasai word for beadwork. She has asked some of the poorest mothers in our Maasai community to make beadwork, that we can then sell in the UK. The ladies receive a small and much needed income for their work, and any profit made in the UK is then fed 100% back to support the Osiligi school. Please feel free to buy some!: www.eripare.org.

The Eripare ladies making beadwork to earn a small income

As you know, the other arm of the charity provides water to communities across Kenya by repairing broken water pumps, mainly hand pumps. This year we have achieved a major landmark – through our generous sponsors and funders, and our team of dedicated water repair engineers located across Kenya, we have now restored water to over 500,000 people, through the repair of more than 2,300 pumps!

The repair work is overseen by our UK volunteer Eric, who supported by his partner Jean, spent an epic 3 months in Kenya this year auditing the pumps repaired since 2021. All repaired pumps inspected were still found to be in perfect working order!

As well as repairing broken pumps, this year we have started to install a number of troughs providing run-off water to the animals.

Thirsty animals enjoying the new water troughs

We have also started a new trial project, funded by the Eagle Foundation, to provide school with a means to grow their own food and be self-sufficient. This involves providing them with a water supply, fenced agricultural plots, irrigation, and agricultural training. The first two schools are well underway, and the vegetables are starting to grow!

Left: Schools beginning to reap what they sow in the new food growing project. Right: Gratitude to Jean (and Eric) for their work in Kenya supporting our water and food growing projects.

Finally, this year has seen a number of personnel changes to the Osiligi charity. We welcome John and Frank who have recently joined us as volunteers to look after the secondary school sponsorship and sponsor accounts, respectively. I also started this year and have taken on the overall management of charity. Together, this will allow Roger and Helen to step back from the running of the charity and take a well-earned rest after 13 full-on years!

We, and Kenya, will always be indebted to Roger and Helen for their foresight, enthusiasm, wisdom, hard work, generosity and achievements over the last 13 years, taking the Osiligi project from an aspiration to where it is today, and the opportunity and benefit it has provided to so many thousands of lives in Kenya.

Thank you for your continued interest and support for the Osiligi Charity.

You are welcome to leave a comment below.

You can see previous newsletters here.

Jim Freeth and the Osiligi team.