After months of work and planning, we at Footsteps were finally able to open our extension to the Katito Vocational Training Centre facility.
The new piece of land, a short drive from the existing facility, will be dedicated to agricultural studies and is also the location for a new girl’s dormitory and matron’s house.
The facility is our biggest project to date because not only does it include buildings but it also includes a 160m deep bore-hole to ensure a constant supply of good quality water, a connection to the mains electricity to ensure an operational facility 24 hours a day, and of course, the classroom and greenhouse facility required to ensure the academic side runs smoothly.
We visited the site in July with our Rafiki 2017 volunteers, and with a lot of singing and dancing our volunteers cut the ribbons on all the buildings. We were very pleased to have Andy Fuller with us to open the main gate, as his wife, Patricia Milner was instrumental in encouraging us to apply for funding from the ED Charitable trust, whose donation of £103,000 enabled to do all of this and more.
We are still continuing to work on the site, and will shortly start work on an equivalent boy’s dormitory and a second matron’s house.
The impact of the facility goes way beyond the compound itself. Connecting this more remote location to the electricity grid brings the possibility for homes all around the compound to connect, and the water supply will ensure that income can be generated for the site through the sale of water, cheaply to local residents. Not only does it bring the water closer to home, but it is a much better quality than the distant river water that is often used instead.
We are delighted with the results of this project before it’s even started and can’t wait to go back and see how the area picks up as a result.
