Our New Goal: To raise an additional $1160 for teachers' sleeping quarters ($3500 in total when added to the previous goal). Previous Goal Reached! Raised over $1,625 to allow five students of Puan Elementary School (Cost $325 a year per student) to attend school next year. Previously, these students did not have school paid for beyond this year and would've had to quit school. Puan Primary School: https://puanprimarykenya.com Our Story: Our family traveled to Kenya in June of 2024. During our trip, we learned that our amazing and compassionate guide, Dickson Kereto, founded a primary school in 2018 named Puan Primary School for the following reasons: 1. Making education accessible Dickson is a native Maasai resident who was fortunate enough to attend primary school in a neighboring village back in the 1990s. He was sent away by his family and stayed with a family friend. However, during those formative years, he was treated differently and unfairly compared to those students living in the local village and was mostly viewed as an outsider. Now, Dickson is 38 and has six children of his own. Until 2018, there was no local school for Dickson’s children or the children of the surrounding village to attend. Dickson felt motivated to start his own school so the local children from the village could have a different experience than the one he had back in the 90s. He wanted children to be able to walk to a close by school and return home to their mother’s house in the evenings (at the very least through primary school, as many children who pursue secondary school must be sent off to join a boarding school). 2. Education of Girls As a father of daughters, Dickson also believed having a local school for the community's young girls would help tremendously. Teenage pregnancy is very high in the area due to girls starting school late (because they are too young to walk long distances alone). The young girls who attend school will start around nine years of age, so they will be teenagers before they finish primary school. The result, unfortunately, is that they often believe they are more mature than they are, and with the lack of contraception and sex education, these young girls are getting pregnant at the age of 12-14, which ultimately ends their educational life. Since starting his school, Dickson has enrolled children as young as 3.5 years old. By the time many of these young girls have hit puberty, they’ve come close or are finishing primary school already, helping to avoid pregnancy at such a young age. 3. For the Community As we all know, education will change one’s life, as it did for Dickson. He is now trying to make sure his village has the option for both young boys and girls to get an education and remain close to their families, something he did not have. Many people in the Maasai who get an education often come home to help support their family and surrounding community, and Dickson has taken the first step on behalf of everyone in his village to help provide that all-important education. Located near the Maasai Mara National Park in rural Kenya. Puan Primary School, a Maasai village school in rural Kenya, was established in 2018 by Dickson Kereto and educates 120+ students in grades K-5. Our guide, Dickson Kereto : "I was also trying to demonstrate the importance of education to my community and my village, and bring education closer to the needy who couldn't afford to send their kids to boarding school." – Dickson Kereto, Founder of Puan Primary School. Although these five children are the main focus of this fundraiser, if donations run past our goal, there are many other needs that the money would go to in Puan Primary, such as: • New Classroom for 5th grade needed by Dec. 2024. Otherwise, 4th graders will need to be let go to attend another school over an hour away. Cost: $2,500 (cost for a permanent classroom is $10,000. One permanent classroom is a requirement to become a government school)* • Teacher’s salary to fund more teachers as well as teacher housing • Classroom floors need to be done as they are dusty and safety hazards due to tripping • Kids toilets - need more in general, and toilets are a requirement to become a government school* • Computer training • Fence for the school *Becoming a government school would help Puan Primary School receive funding to improve facilities Any size donation will have a huge impact on the children of Puan and will be greatly appreciated! All donations received will be sent directly to the school. Here are a few pictures from our travels in Kenya: Thank you! Rider & Shepard Harrington
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