Projects

The second phase of this project involves a number of facilities that will enable the school to fulfil its regional function. By creating dormitories for girls and boys, the children will be able to stay over safely and will no longer have to walk many hours to school every day in the burning sun.
The school is not only a primary school, but also has the status of a junior secondary school (groups 7 to 9). Our ambition is to realise a physics and chemistry classroom and a computer room, so that the children in these groups can receive all the education they need in this phase of their lives.
Apart from this, we are planning to build a fence and a shade.

The primary school in Kasemeni has many challenges. One of them is the lack of a so-called shade. This is a covered place that offers protection from the sun and where meetings with parents and other types of consultation can be held. The old shade was blown away during a storm several years ago. Since then, all meetings here have largely been held in the blazing sun, at very high temperatures.

In Kasemeni, several (women’s) groups are engaged in microcredit, locally called table-banking. By helping each other in a group by exchanging knowledge and experience and by providing loans, participants can start up small businesses, or expand existing ones. These loans come from a common pot, into which the women make a small contribution at each meeting and which the Saidia Kwale Foundation supplements somewhat. In this way, participants strengthen their income position and increase their self-reliance. After a tentative start in 2021, the number of micro-credit projects in Kasemeni has grown significantly. Because of this succes, the foundation decided to buy 100 goats, to be divided over the different groups. Click on the project and read more about the success of a number of women’s groups.

Kasemeni has long been plagued by prolonged drought. Its dependence on the rainy season is high. To reduce this dependence, high priority has been given by the community to construct a large water basin. During the rainy season, this can fill with water that can be used to bridge the dry period until the next rainy season.
It is also planned to start horticulture and fruit trees around the basin. This will greatly improve the availability of varied and healthy food for families.

Autumn 2024 update

The water situation in Kasemeni is very dire due to an exceptionally long period of drought. The health post has hardly any water left and the population drinks the last remaining (very salty) water from the existing (small) water dam.
In close cooperation with the Ministry of Water, preparations for a new, much larger water basin will therefore start soon.

Surveys have shown that the health status of a number of children in Mzuri and Kasemeni is far from optimal. Often, lunch at school is the only serious meal children get in a day. It is therefore all the more important that this school meal is healthy and available to all children. Currently, kitchen facilities at schools in Kasemeni and Mzuri are severely sub-standard. Creating large gardens around the schools can significantly improve the quality of the daily school meal. Read more about these important projects here.

In Kasemeni and surroundings there were no medical facilities. The nearest care post was a day’s walk away. Partly because of this, in recent years people died due to problems with childbirth, typhoid and malaria and snake bites. Deaths that could have been prevented with (simple) medical help.

Fortunately, in the summer of 2022, we were able to largely fulfill the biggest wish of the local community – the establishment of a local care post. A separate delivery room is still on our wish list. Read more about what has been achieved so far and what we still want to achieve.

This ongoing activity aims to make small businesses in Bang’a more successful. By giving the participants more insight and skills for running their business. In 2020, 2021 and 2022 various training courses were given. It is expected that the need for this training will remain high in the coming years. We adapt the content, based on the wishes of the participants and the results of evaluations.

Annette’s Women Group is a local entrepreneurial organization founded by women from the Bang’a area. The organization is committed to strengthening the community. Our foundation has helped the women realise a large project to raise and fatten broilers.

There was a lot of overdue maintenance at Kasemeni primary school. Moreover, there were far too few toilets for the children and teachers and there was no teachers’ room.

Anno May 2024, this project is in full swing. And it is expected to be completed by the end of August.
What will have been achieved by then?
A teachers’ room/admin block has been built, as a result of which there will also be an additional classroom. Eight toilets for the boys, eight for the girls and three for the teachers have been realised. A new entrance gate with guard house has been built. And the existing buildings have been completely refurbished; everything has been repaired and painted, roofs replaced, gutters refurbished and floors tiled.

Ever since our foundation started, we have been supporting the poorest families in Bang’a in the form of small-scale chicken farms. In order to generate food and a small income for themselves. Meanwhile, two of the three groups have switched from keeping chickens to keeping goats. Goats are more resistant to local conditions.

Proposed by the Digital Education Africa Network (DEAN), we decided to contribute to a two-year educational program for the teachers of Kasemeni Primary School. This involves training in digital skills, facilities such as laptops, tablets and a server, and access to a large package of online courses. The program has now started (July 2022) and is coming to an end. The teachers are very enthusiastic. To enable them to work in the evenings as well, we also donated 15 small solar-powered studio lights.

As known, climate change has a major impact on parts of Africa and thus also on the Kwale region. The rainy season in Kwale is becoming less predictable and seems to be getting shorter. The long periods of drought have immense consequences for humans and animals. Families are forced to spend most of their time finding water, livestock are dying and the already scarce agriculture has hardly got off the ground in the past year.

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Mainly due to economic problems caused by the pandemic, the maintenance status of the primary school in Bang’a was poor. With the (financial) help of our foundation, some classrooms were given a new concrete floor, all blackboards were given a new layer of paint, the toilets were refurbished and the school grounds were cleaned. The parents have played a major role in the ‘refurbishment’ of the school.

Bang’a Primary School plays an important role for the girls of Kwale County. The school has almost as many girls as boys, in a poor area where education for girls is not always a given. In the past the girls of group 8 were sleeping in a classroom without sanitary facilities. Made possible by the donors of the Saidia Kwale Foundation -including in particular the Quatfass Foundation- in 2021 a new dormitory with sanitary facilities were realized for 50 girls.

With the help of the Wilde Ganzen Foundation, we were able to enable Annette’s Women group to purchase four step sewing machines in 2020. Materials to make face masks and disinfectant soap were also purchased. The ladies made the face masks and provided a comprehensive education program for all residents of the community. To date, the number of corona infections in Bang’a has remained very low. Annette’s  Women Group then started a sewing workshop with the sewing machines. Here, clothes are made and sold and young women are trained.

The impact of corona on the economy in Kenya is very large. Employment has declined sharply due, among other things, to tourists staying away. This also puts the food supply at risk. In 2020, in collaboration with the Jambo Maji Foundation and the Wild Geese Foundation, we therefore provided the 15% poorest families in Bang’a with the products they need to be able to prepare one meal a day. These families were thus not only assured of a good meal, but also had more time to work in and around the house.

Clean drinking water is a basic necessity of life. Yet Kwale County residents have limited access to clean drinking water. Because the drought in Kasemeni is very structural and the capacity for collecting rainwater is limited. That is why the Saidia Kwale Foundation – with the help of, among others, Dutch Flower Foundation and Stichting Wilde ganzen – has repaired a leaking water tank in Kasemeni and added five new water tanks of 10,000 liters each.