“Lenders, We as Terrian community are greatly indebted to you for the assistance you have given us. Before the loan was granted to us, the lower classes were sharing a classroom, together with both their teacher. It was the same case with classes four and five. Though the number of pupils were not big, it was very difficult for different teachers, trying to deliver different materials to two different groups within the same environment at the same time. It was a major challenge.
The loan which was given to us has helped solve this problem. We managed to put up two classrooms and a small office where parents can be attended to. The structure, though not complete, is currently being used by classes four and five. Thanks to Zidisha Partners.”
– Update posted on April 18 by Theresia Kabiti in Nairobi, Kenya
From Theresia’s profile:
“I am a Kenyan citizen, married with a boy and two girls. I have government training in early childhood development (ECD). I am currently pursuing my national diploma in ECD. I have worked in several private education institutions (Private School) since 1993 when I completed my formal education. My bitter realization was that many of our children cannot get quality early childhood education because the fees charged by these institutions are out of reach for our poor children. This has led to many of our children seeking refuge in other backstreet informal schools set up by insincere business people whose objectives are to exploit the situation. These schools end up either not even paying its teachers in time or at all leading to very high rate of teacher turn over, there by denying the children the much needed continuity and consistency. This made me quit employment from a private school situated in my current residential place. My main objective was to provide this much needed early childhood education to our poor children who were always being sent out of these schools for lack of school fees. I, in collaboration with other well wishers, set up a kindergarten named “The Terrian School”. We ask parents to pay a small fee (KSH 500 or $5.50 per month) to help sustain teachers, who are more of volunteers. We, however, do not send any child away for lack of fees. Our children mostly come from poor parents who are either house helps or working as laborers around the estate…
Since the Kenya Government is currently not funding early childhood education, we saw it an obligation to work to assist the majority of our society whose children could not get better education. It with this background that the idea to start The Terrian School was conceived. The school is situated in Utawala – Githunguri estate. Our children mostly come from poor parents who are either house helps or working as laborers around the estate. Since inception of The Terrian School in January 2005, we dispatch an average of 30 pupils to standard one in public primary schools every year. The parents suggested that we incorporate lower primary school levels and in January 2009 we introduced standard one. Currently we have Baby Class, Nursery, Pre-Unit, Standards One, Two and Three, a pupil population of about 70, and four teachers. Our teachers are working as volunteers, being given a token of KSH 3,500 to 4,000 [$40 to $50] a month, and are motivated by the fact that they give hope to those who were otherwise hopeless. We have tried our best and our former children are doing very well in whichever schools they join.”
