Health and Hygiene Support: April 2021

April 12, 2021

Dear TKP Family,

This week we’re launching a three-week initiative to keep our health and hygiene programs going strong for TKP’s 1,500 students. This campaign is more important than ever, as our team in Kilgoris continues to face challenges related to COVID-19. 

 Thankfully, all of our students were able to return to campus for the first school term of 2021, January through March. But right now, Kenya’s largest counties and cities are facing strict lockdowns and we don’t know what that will mean for Kilgoris or our students. We’re planning to welcome all TKP students back in early May for the second term and are committed to doing so in the cleanest and safest way possible.

 Our team continues to serve the health needs of our students by ensuring the sanitation of our campuses and classrooms:

• We’ve allocated an increased budget for sanitation supplies and temporary hand washing stations. Adequate hand washing is more important than ever in helping to curb the spread of COVID-19 and we are committed to making sure each of TKP’s 11 schools have plenty of water, soap and supplies for all teachers, staff and students. 

• As we continue to serve more students, we’re adding more toilets and an incinerator on the Nentkeney campus to ensure cleanliness.

• For TKP’s five campuses with clean water wells (let’s celebrate that for a minute…access to clean water is a true gift for our students!) we’re planning regular maintenance and repairs to keep the access to clean water flowing. 

We need you to join us in raising $15,000 in the next three weeks to keep these important health and hygiene programs going strong.

 Will you partner with us today?

 Make your secure, tax-deductible donation here: www.kilgoris.org/donate

2020 Impact Report

Dear Friends,

One year ago, a new reality hit for all of us. Educational authorities sent students home. Travel disappeared. And an upcoming fundraising campaign looked shaky.

Even in those uncertain times, it was your faithful partnership, love and prayers that allowed our TKP team to continue serving our incredible students, their families, and the Kilgoris community. We have so much to be thankful for.

With your unwavering generosity, we found creative ways to serve our 1,400 students and families, we kept our talented staff fully employed, and we joyfully welcomed students back to clean, fully-stocked classrooms in January of 2021.

PANDEMIC PIVOTS

As 2020 unfolded, our team quickly found ways to serve students outside the classroom. From your gifts during our April campaign, we delivered food assistance to our most vulnerable students, providing their families and caregivers with monthly staple grocery kits.

Once we met students’ basic nutrition needs, we turned to meeting their social and educational needs, as well. On campus, students picked up pencils, erasers and grade-level workbooks so they could continue learning at home. And in August, we began our Village Classroom program—small, socially-distanced, neighborhood gatherings reconnecting TKP students and teachers. These outdoor classrooms also allowed our health team to check the students’ safety, health and overall well-being.

FLOODED WITH GENEROSITY

We’re grateful to share 2020 was our most successful fundraising year to-date. From grant funders, to church partnerships, to the thousands of individual donors we count on—everyone showed up in big ways to support TKP students. We felt the love and generosity all year.

With strong income (and lower expenses because school was out of session), TKP is well positioned to grow and continue to invest in the young hearts, minds and bodies of our students.

Read on in this 2020 Impact Report to see the exceptional impact of your generous gifts. More than ever, we thank you for your continued support and faithful partnership.

While we still don’t know how efforts to fight the pandemic will unfold through the year, we do know we’re well-positioned to continue serving Kilgoris’ kids. Bring on 2021!

Caren McNelly McCormack
President and Co-Founder

David Lemiso
Executive Director

Video: Changing Lives in Rural Kenya

Tune in to see behind the scenes of The Kilgoris Project’s work in rural Kenya. Meet a few of our staff members, hear from one of our top students, and see the joy that is created on each of our campuses. Your continued partnership brings incredible education and health care to this rural community. Enjoy seeing your impact firsthand!

2019 Impact Report

Dear Friends, 

As I sit down to write this letter in March 2020, we are in the thick of uncertainty, watching the global COVID-19 pandemic unfold around us. But as I start to write, and reflect back on 2019, I can’t help but be immensely grateful when I think of all the ways you blessed TKP in 2019. 

The way you showed up for TKP students in 2019 helped us add three water wells to our campuses, brought healthy meals and clean water to an even greater number of students, allowed us to celebrate eighth-grade graduation at two campuses, and encouraged us to find creative ways to use our Kenyan farms and revenue projects to support all schools. 

Your faithful partnership, love and prayers continue to bring education and transformation to rural Kenya. Here are a few highlights from 2019: 

CLEAN WATER ADDED TO THREE CAMPUSES: 2019 was the year of new, clean water wells at our Oloowang, Oloturot and Nentekeny campuses. These sites serve both preschool and primary school students. Private donors, church partners, and foundations all came together to make these three wells a reality for the 525 students who call these campuses home.

Besides the obvious benefit of clean drinking water for our students, the on-campus access helps ensure the safety and productivity of our amazing cooks who previously walked much further to gather water daily. Access to water is transformational for communities in rural Kenya, and we’re grateful that you provided for our students this year. 

INAUGURAL OLTIKAMPU GRADUATION: In September, Oltikampu eighth graders joined their classmates at Intimigom for one of our largest graduations to date—49 students across both campuses. During the beautiful graduation ceremonies, I’m always touched by the pride I see in the parents’ eyes. Parents take the day off work and come with gifts of shiny tinsel leis and messages of congratulations on printed placards. And, with tears of pride in their eyes they celebrate their children and their immense accomplishments all day. TKP graduates once again boasted a 100 percent enrollment in high school—amazing for an area where 60 percent of public school students fail to qualify for high school. 

DIVERSE SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES: We continue to invest in our in-country revenue generating programs, which now includes: eucalyptus tree farms and seedling nursery, a plowing and hauling business, egg production, and farming of beans, maize and cabbages. We’re beginning to pivot more of our food and egg production to directly support the school meal program (two meals per day, per student) where it can have the most impact, versus selling it in town. Additionally, our farmers and tractor drivers continue to effectively manage our land and hire the tractor out for income generating jobs to support the schools. 

All of this—the wells, graduations, and preschool-to-eighth-grade students learning every day—would not be possible without your years of faithful partnership. Asante sana! 

Read the full 2019 Impact Report to see how we stewarded your generous gifts in 2019.

With gratitude, 

Caren McNelly McCormack
President & Co-founder, The Kilgoris Project

Meet our Health Team!

TKP’s amazing Health Team in Kilgoris works tirelessly to ensure the health and safety of all of our students. We want you to meet them and hear from them directly about how your support of TKP helps. Please enjoy meeting Amos and Belvin!

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Amos Leperes, TKP's Student Health Officer is a star of TKP and stewards your generous gifts to benefit the health and well-being of TKP's entire student population. We recently did a What's App interview with Amos where he shared a little bit about his job and his concerns right now.

Amos Leperes, TKP’s Student Health Officer

Q: First tell us your favorite thing about being a Student Health Officer?
A: My favorite thing as the Student Health Officer is to see young children growing nutritionally healthy and seeing them have access to health care. We have been able to diagnose several children with life-threatening diseases or illnesses at early stages. Then they received treatment and recovered. I also love seeing them get clean water at school.

Q: How are you feeling about COVID-19 and it's impact on TKP students?
A: Vulnerable kids are at risk of malnutrition during this time. TKP was able to help several with our grocery packages. But I am a little worried because all of the children are missing the services that we usually give them in school. With good hygiene and hand washing techniques that we have taught them I'm hopeful they will share with their families and follow them at home.

Q: How are you and your family doing?
A: We are doing well and are healthy. My family is practicing hand washing, cough hygiene (coughing into elbow), keeping distance and avoiding social gatherings during this trying time.

Thank you Amos for all you do for TKP's students and the entire community. 

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We’re excited to share this short interview with our Assistant Student Health Officer, Belvin Potishoi. Belvin joined the TKP team after finishing her schooling in 2019. She’s a joy to be around and a compassionate health care professional! We’re fortunate to have her as part of our team. 

Belvin Potishoi, TKP’s Assistant Student Health Officer

Q: First, can you share why you chose to go into the medical field?
A: What really inspired me was that in my community there was a need for health care workers. Sick people had travel for a long distance for medication. This was a burden on my heart because they were not only sick, but most of them were not able to afford transportation fares so they had to walk long distances to a clinic or doctor. Therefore, I went into a medical field and pursued clinical medicine to help bridge the gap in my community.

Q: What worries you about the COVID-19 pandemic? 
A: COVID-19 could bring adverse effects academically and health wise to a number of TKP students. Most of their parents are casual workers and are not able to work due to the pandemic, others are not employed at all. This is really going to prevent them from providing their families with basic needs. I worry they won’t have access to food and the health of the kids will deteriorate since they will be lacking some nutrients in their bodies. I also worry students will be left behind academically. Many parents are illiterate and can’t access learning programmes offered on television. 

Q: What is your favorite part about working for TKP?
A: I love helping the community so much. I really feel honored working with TKP because it really works for the Masai community to help improve and make it a better place. It provides education and health programme for the kids which are key in changing a community, because kids are the future of a community. 

Big thanks to Belvin and Amos for all you do for TKP students and their families! We are *this close* to meeting our goal of $20,000 to ensure that our health team has the resources to serve our students when they come back. Will you join us today in honor of Belvin, Amos, and the incredible work they do? www.kilgoris.org/donate