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Bruxelles le 14/10/2005 Maître Innocent TWAGIRAMUNGU Président du Comité de Soutien Ecole Kabilia Sacred Heart Parish Dagoretti P O Box 21200 – 00505 Nairobi-Kenya Tel:+ 254 20 3874897 Email: pallotine@insightkenya.com
N° / 001/KAB-ASS/05 Objet : Soutien à une école Cher (e) Monsieur /Madame,
Un groupe de personnes ayant vécu au Kenya, ou entretenant un certain lien avec des ressortissants des Grands Lacs (Rwanda, RDC, Burundi) réfugiés dans ce pays, ont loué et encouragé l’initiative de ceux-ci de créer une école afin de mieux encadrer et éduquer les enfants réfugiés, victimes de l’Histoire récente dont ils ne sont nullement responsables. L’école en question est connue sous le nom de Kabilia. Son adresse officielle est ci-haut mentionnée.
L’Ecole Kabilia compte 140 élèves du primaire et 120 du secondaire. Les membres de son personnel sont au nombre de 22, corps enseignant et personnel administratif y compris. Depuis plus de 10 ans l’école survit grâce aux dons et bénévolats. Aujourd’hui les besoins sont énormes, et cette jeunesse risque de se retrouver dans la rue, avec ce que cela comporte comme conséquences. Vous trouverez en attaché le détail de ces besoins.
Le
comité s’adresse à vous, afin de solliciter un appui matériel à ce sujet,
et/ou une recommandation à d’autres personnes ou institution pouvant faire
un geste, si minime soit-il, en faveur de cette école et de cette jeunesse
exilée. Le budget en annexe étant tout simplement indicatif, votre appui se
limiterait dans le cadre de vos possibilités et prévisions. Tout don est à
verser au compte n°
210-0622 652-61 (Fortis
Banque, Place de Jambline de Meux, 18 à 1030 Bruxelles) des
Missionnaires d'Afrique du centre AMANI de
Bruxelles avec comme
La personne de contact qui s’occupe de la coordination de l’aide au kenya est le curé de la paroisse « Sacred Heart Dagoretti », Father J. KARANJA.
Nous avons la joie de vous convier à une réunion de réflexion et de soutien qui aura lieu samedi le 22 octobre 2005 à 14h00 au bureau de la Revue Dialogue à 1000 Bruxelles, Rue Hobbema, 29 (Metro Mérode ou Schuman, Bus 61, arrêt Wappers).
Comptant sur votre générosité, je vous prie d’agréer, Révérend Père, Révérend Frère, Monsieur le, Madame la, l’assurance de ma haute considération.
Innocent TWAGIRAMUNGU Président du comité de soutien
REQUEST FOR FINANCIAL AND MATERIAL SUPPORT FOR THE KABIRIA SAINT KIZITO SOCIOCULTURAL CENTRE (NAIROBI, KENYA)
I. INTRODUCTION
The Kabiria St Kizito Sociocultural Centre, located on the western outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, is an institution that mainly offers formal education to children of refugee families that live in Kenya but come from the French-speaking countries of the Great Lakes Region of Africa, namely Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Centre started in September 1996 on the initiative of those children’s parents. Its main activity is to offer both primary and secondary education, either of which lasts for six years. The student population has varied, with years, between two and four hundred. The Centre’s objective is to prepare those children to integrate easily into the school/academic and job environment in their countries of origin when their parents or they themselves decide to return home one day. That is why the Centre’s language of instruction is French.
The Centre is sponsored by the Sacred Heart Parish Dogoretti, a catholic parish of the Nairobi diocese. It actually lies on a plot of land that was donated by the parish, although it was built (with wooden planks and corrugated iron sheets) by parents, with the financial assistance from various benefactors.
From 1996 to 1998, the teachers worked on a purely voluntary basis. Since 1999, Caritas Italiana started to provide the primary school teachers’ salaries and educational materials. It stopped this assistance in August 2004. For its part, the government of the Balearic Islands (in Spain), through the Olivar Foundation, took care of the secondary school teachers’ salaries and educational materials, paid for tuition fees and school uniforms for all the schoolchildren and pupils, and paid for food for the children from the most destitute families. On the ground, in Nairobi, the Balearic Islands’ government’s aid was first managed by the AMCEA Refugee Programme and then by the Africa Refugee Programme (ARP).
A representative of the Olivar Foundation visited the St Kizito Centre in June this year to familiarize herself with the problems that it was faced with. Before she returned to Spain, a request was made to her by the parish priest, in his capacity as the chairman of the Centre’s board of governors, to renew the Balearic Islands’ government’s financial aid starting from September 2005. However, a few days later, the Centre learnt, through the parish priest, that the aid in question was to stop with the month of August 2005.
Thus, the current situation is that when the school year 2005/2006 begins on 12 September 2005, no financial support will be available to cater for any one of the Centre’s budget lines (salaries for both primary and secondary school teachers, purchase of educational materials, etc.). It should be noted in passing that during the 2004/2005 school year, the primary school teachers’ received only a token contribution, from parents, of about four thousand Kenya shillings (± USD 50) on average; the parents contributed three hundred shillings per month and per child.
There is no doubt that for the next school year the situation will become much worse for the parents: as it was already not easy for them to raise the 300 KES per month, it is likely to be simply impossible for them to raise enough money to pay for the education of their children in secondary school.
It is on the basis of this background that the Kabiria St Kizito Centre is appealing to any goodwill individuals and organisations to help it not shut down its primary and secondary school by providing it with any financial and/or material support they can afford. That said, the school would only be able to continue operating if, in the long run, teachers received some incentive allowance with which they can survive in Nairobi.
You will find below more information on the Centre’s current situation and the budgetary estimates that would enable it to function more or less as it used to do before the stopping of the assistance from both Caritas Italiana and the government of the Balearic Islands.
For more information on the Centre’s teaching activities, you could contact the school’s Head. As for any possible assistance you would wish to offer, you could get in touch with the priest in charge of Sacred Heart Parish Dogoretti. In either case, the official correspondence address is the following:
Sacred Heart Parish Dogoretti P O Box 21200 – 00505 Nairobi, Kenya Tel: 254 20 3874897 Email: pallotine@insightkenya.com
II. A SUMMARY OF THE CENTRE’S SITUATION DURING THE 2004/2005 SCHOOL YEAR
1. Student population: - Primary school: 140 schoolchildren - Secondary school: 120 pupils
2. Number of teachers: - Primary school: 7 (one of whom teaches Kiswahili from one class to another) - Secondary school: 15 (including the head teacher, the “préfet des etudes” (i.e. the teaching activities coordinator) and the “préfet de discipline” (i.e. discipline master)
3. Support staff: 1 secretary-cum-librarian
4. Teaching curriculum: - For the primary school: the normal, general curriculum - For the secondary chool: a curriculum with a strong science bias
5. Facilities: - Classrooms: 6 for the primary section and 6 for the secondary one - A head teacher’s office that also serves as a staff room, a library, an infirmary and a storeroom - Toilets: 4 pit latrines for girls and 4 for boys; the same toilets are used by the parish community next to the school - 1 small playing field; work to build a basketball ground and a volleyball one had already started
III. THE AMOUNT OF FINANCIAL AID WHICH THE KABIRIA ST KIZITO CENTRE WOULD NEED TO FUNCTION NORMALLY FOR THE 2005/2006 SCHOOL YEAR (See the annexed table)
ANNEXE
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