Makongeni

OVERVIEW

Makongeni is a small rural community situated on the south coast of Kenya, 50 km south of Mombasa, and was the first community that we partnered with back in 2003. Like many other rural areas, the majority of the population are living below the poverty line and access to medical services, clean drinking water and a proper education are often limited or non-existent. Thanks to the hard work of all our volunteers who have participated over the past few years, we have made significant positive changes to this village. Much of our work has focused on improving the facilities available at the only school in the village, Makongeni Primary School, which was originally designed to accommodate 150 pupils but now has around 800 students enrolled.

Our volunteers have helped to build classrooms, create a source of clean drinking water, provide resources such as desks, a library, educational materials as well as many hours spent working alongside the children, teaching and playing sports.

What ARE THE MAIN ISSUES?

Poverty
Limited access to proper educational facilities
Lack of employment opportunities
Lack of investment in community development
Deforestation

PROJECT TIMELINE

2003:

Built Camp Makongeni - Agreed a 3 year sustainable development plan with the community

2004:

Weather station – Created a simple weather station with the pupils at Makongeni as part of their environmental awareness education
Classroom improvement - Renovated 4 classrooms including structural repairs, plastering, painting, fitting doors and windows.
Sports facilities - Constructed football pitch for the school

2005:

Nursery school – Constructed nursery school for 150 children
Water storage – Built a large water tank and appropriate catchment to collect rainwater run-off
Meeting point - Built a flag post with foundation to be used for meetings and parades
Play area - Installed playground facilities including swings, a tyre swing and a see-saw
Classroom improvement – Refurbished a 4 classroom block
Tree nursery - Established a school tree nursery with casuarinas to provide a fast-growing and sustainable source of wood that can be used for construction and firewood. Casuarinas grow very well in dry areas and are tolerant of saline water. They are very good at enriching soils and are common in agro-forestry systems in Kenya.

2006:

Water harvesting - Facilitating water collection from rainwater run-off by installing appropriate guttering around the school
Toilet block – Completed an 8-unit ablution block at the school to reduce the risk of disease spread through poor hygiene
Library – constructed a fully equipped library and stocked it with over 3,000 books
Waste Management - Built and painted 12 taka taka (rubbish) bins outside each classroom as part of an environmental awareness programme

2007:

Staff house - Construction of two staff quarters
School kitchen – Built a new school kitchen for the pupils
Sports facilities - Started the ongoing development of sports grounds and facilities as part of our dedicated SDX programme
Animal welfare - Constructed livestock crush to assist in de-worming animals in the village
Desks - Finished building over 300 desks for pupils at the school
Borehole - Community borehole and well created in the village, funded by one of our volunteers

2008:

Security – Completion of a perimeter fence around the school
Toilet block – Completed a 4-unit community ablution block in the village
Classroom improvement – Refurbished a 4 classroom block

2009:

Classroom improvement – Ongoing refurbishment of 10 classrooms
Tree planting – Expanding school tree nursery and teaching forestry skills to children

2010:

Nursery Refurbishment – Improvement of nursery facilities
Traditional house build - Constructed a traditional house for impoverished family
IT Skills Training - Providing computers for the school and local residents to use and running training workshops on basic IT skills
Feeding programme – Initiated at community centre for 70 children under 6 years old

2011:

Traditional house building programme – Completed 7 houses in Makongeni for extremely impoverished families
Nursery school - Ongoing construction of classes and making desks
Rural electrification - Helped provide electricity to Makongeni Primary School
Tree planting – Planted 200 casuarina trees in the primary school and 100 casuarinas at the Lolarako Women's Group centre
Feeding programme – Continued at community centre for 70 children under 6 years old
IT skills training and English language teaching – Ongoing IT skills training for the school and local residents and English language teaching support at schools and for the local community groups

YOUR ROLE AS A VOLUNTEER

Project work will vary depending on the needs of the sanctuary at the time but may include:

Ongoing improvement of school infrastructure and facilities that may involve low-level construction, painting or plastering
Constructing traditional houses and providing sanitation facilities for elderly people that currently don’t have suitable accommodation
Providing teaching assistance (conversational English and basic computer skills) as well as playing sports with the children
Developing and running environmental education workshops with the local school to teach them the value of conserving wildlife and preserving the environment
Developing and supporting the community tree nursery

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Makongeni

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