Projects

Bang’a Primary School is the beacon of hope for many young minds in the poor Kinango region of Kwale. The school provides fantastic education for children in an area where educated people are strongly outnumbered. The school is growing rapidly but is very outdated. One of the highest priorities is the construction of a new administration building to be able to  manage the school effectively.

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. They do this by helping the businesses of local entrepreneurs to get started with microcredit.

The Bang’a Primary School is the largest primary school in the Bang’a area. More than 500 children go to school every day to enjoy education. The school is outdated, the groups are too large and many lessons cannot take place when it rains outside. Saidia Kwale Foundation is committed to the construction of three new classrooms. This would also bring the number of children below the Kenyan maximum of 50 children per classroom.

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). The teachers are very enthusiastic. To enable them to work in the evenings as well, we also donated 15 small solar-powered studio lights.

In Bang’a and Kasemeni, various (women’s) groups are engaged in microcredit, locally called table-banking. By helping each other in a group with loans, participants can start small businesses, or expand existing businesses. In doing so, they strengthen their income position and increase their self-reliance. A cautious start has been made with this in 2021. Saidia Kwale Foundation wants to increase the chances of success of these initiatives, with a small financial contribution per participant.

Kasemeni has long been plagued by prolonged drought. Dependence on the rainy season is great. In order to reduce this dependence, the community has given high priority to the construction of a large basin. During the rainy season, it can fill with water that can be used to bridge the dry period until the next rainy season.

In a discussion with the people of Kasemeni possibilities for economic activity, the idea arose to start a small-scale pea project. One of the inhabitants has made land available. However, there was a lack of means to buy seeds. The foundation has therefore made a first financial contribution to buy seeds and fertilizer. A group of five inhabitants started working on this. Later this year we will see how things are going and whether additional help is needed.

With small donations for the purchase of chicks, feed and medicine, we enable the poorest families in Bang’a to keep chickens on a small scale. And thereby generate food and a small income for themselves. The plan for a small-scale chicken farm came from the community itself and started small.  In the meantime, the project has expanded to three family groups.

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.

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.

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. It is an important foundation for growing up healthy and being able to learn. However,  currently the kitchen facilities at the school in Kasemeni are severely substandard. We are committed to building a new school kitchen in Kasemeni. Read here to find out how you can support the school.

The Kenyan Ministry of Education maintains a target standard of 50 students per class. In Kasemeni, however, this average is much higher. Students have to share their desks and school materials with as many as three classmates. The Saidia Kwale Foundation is committed to the construction of three new classrooms in Kasemeni.

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.