Registered Charity No. 1134520

Meisori Schoolchildren

Meisori School

The school building is a long single storey concrete structure with eight classrooms and an office, situated a few miles from Lake Baringo in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya.  It serves primary school children aged from 6 to 14, some of whom walk up to 12 kilometres to school.

The classroom floors and walls are bare concrete, with a simple blackboard on one wall in each room, and there were insufficient desks so that the children in the lower classes had to sit three or four to a desk.  They share text books and had barely enough pens and pencils etc.  Our communications with the Headmaster after we returned to England in 2007 revealed that his priority for equipment at the primary school was provision of more desks.  The children belong to the local tribe, the Njemp, and speak that dialect.  Whilst at primary school they learn Swahili, their National language, and English the official language of Kenya.  This means it is possible for us to converse with the older pupils in English and get a feel for their aspirations.
It was noticeable that the lower classes had much larger numbers of children than the higher classes and this was because some of the older children were needed to stay at home and work on family tasks rather than attend school.

We are pleased to report that since our involvement with the school, class numbers have increased and more children are staying on to age 14.

In the last year at primary school Kenyan children take a national examination which determines whether they qualify academically to attend secondary school. 
As Meisori Primary is a remote rural school, children who qualify to go on to secondary school have to go as boarders because of the distances involved.  This means not only do they need uniform and books, but also need to purchase their own mattress and bedding etc. and pay for transport.  The Kenyan government began to fund tuition fees for secondary pupils in January 2008 but this represents only a small portion of the annual fees and all other expenses are still payable by the families.