As our regular followers will know, our strategy started off supporting first children, then primary schools, then we moved on to a medical facility and secondary schools and then, in our final phase of what we hope has been a holistic approach to community development, we have expanded our support to the former village polytechnic which now goes by the much grander name of the “Katito Vocational Training College”.
Our programme of work continues steadily. The latest school that we've taken under our wing is the St. Aloys Secondary School. It is the second secondary school we are supporting, following classrooms and dormitories built at Magunga Secondary School.
In the next years a number of the children on our sponsorship programme will be attending this place so we'd like to make it nice for them!
Following a donation of £50,000 last year from CMS, the final phase of building work - three classrooms at Rae Mixed Primary - are now all finished and being used.
With the money we were able to:
Build from scratch 3 classrooms at Monica's school - Rae Primary.
Finish the block of 3 classrooms at Rae Mixed Primary.
Bring to an acceptable standard 3 classrooms at Wenwa Primary school.
Do some urgently needed repairs to the administration block at Rae Mixed.
Former Rafiki volunteer, Gus Young, who came with us to Kenya in 2010, has dusted his old running shoes off and raising money for Footsteps at the same time. On the 21st of May he will run the Clapham Common 10K and has set up a fundraising page in justgiving.
Thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday 15th November for our annual bash at the Lighthouse. We were able to raise £14,000 towards the Technical College in Katito which will go a long way towards meeting the commitments we have made to our friends in Kenya. It was a fabulous evening and thanks again to the Auctioneer, Patrick Going and to Hugo and his team at the Lighthouse for the excellent food and service provided.
Suzanne
Our Rafiki 2015 trip may seem like a long time ago now but this beautiful book containing 70 pages of stunning, poignant and amusing photos from the trip will make it seem like it was only yesterday.
The book is available in soft cover for just over £25 and in hard cover for just under £34.
I hope you enjoy it as much as we have.
With all best wishes from Footsteps
Suzanne, Tony, Niall and Rupert
Check out these top auction prizes up for grabs at our fund raising dinner:
1. Three Course Dinner for 2 inc. a bottle of champagne at The Ivy Market Grill, Covent Garden
2. Remembrance - Painting in Oils by Mary Coughlan
3. Work Experience at Heathrow
4. Deer Safari in Richmond Park
5. 2 Tickets for Mumford and Sons, Thursday, 10th December
6. Week in Trebetherick, Cornwall
7. Work experience at top city law firm CMS
Over the last 11 years my great friend and tireless supporter of Footsteps, Mary Coughlan has donated one of her beautiful paintings for auction at the Footsteps dinners. In that time we have raised a great deal of money towards our projects in Kenya and a few of our supporters have been able to enjoy having one of Mary's paintings on their wall. Mary has now agreed to allow us to reproduce her paintings on greetings cards which we can offer for sale to all of you.
In July this year Duncan Weston, managing partner at law firm CMS joined a group of 22 volunteers who travelled to Kisumu, near Lake Victoria in Kenya, to take part in the ‘Rafiki’ programme.
Inspired by the experience, Duncan organised for the CMS Academy and the architect firms MCM and KKS to donate £50k which will be used to invest in Early Childhood Development infrastructure in the Rae Community. The donation covers the construction of 6 classrooms at 2 schools.
Please join us for dinner on Sunday 15th November at the Light House Restaurant, Wimbledon
7pm - Drinks
8pm - Dinner followed by Auction and Raffle
Tickets £65 Cheques payable to Footsteps for Africa or by Bank transfer Sort Code: 403424 Ac No: 91428411 Ref: LH15 + Your Name
