Ardingly In Africa
For some years now, the Senior School has been sponsoring two Kenyan teenagers through a charity organised by Colonel Harry Vialou Clark, an Old Ardinian and a third generation Kenyan. In addition to securing sponsorship to enable over 130 poor but bright African children to complete their secondary education, Harry also raises money in the U.K. to build new primary schools in the Gilgil area of Kenya.
Last year, I proposed that to mark Ardingly College’s 150th anniversary in 2008, we should attempt to raise enough money to build a new primary school in Kenya. By doing this, we would be acknowledging the extraordinary work of our Founder, Nathaniel Woodard, and we would also be providing a tangible and enduring legacy for future generations of poor Kenyan children.
Over the recent Half Term, I spent four days in Kenya meeting up with the students we are sponsoring there and visiting a number of local schools. Two of these were well established primary schools that had been built some years ago by Harry Vialou Clark; two still had their basic mud walled classrooms, but were in the process of building new facilities; and one was Ndogo Primary School, which is the site where we hope to build our own school in due course.
Set on the slopes of the African Rift Valley some five miles from Gilgil, Ndogo occupies an idyllic site with vistas stretching for miles up and down the valley. The current school buildings are anything but idyllic however, with two hundred pupils crammed into four mud-walled huts. These “classrooms” have no windows, no ventilation and the only light comes from the open doorway. Three of the four have rudimentary blackboards, all have dirt floors which turn to mud when it rains and some of the pupils are lucky enough to have home-made benches on which to sit. Those less fortunate stand or sit on the floor.
Pupils walk up to three miles to get to school by 7.30 in the morning. Then, having often had no breakfast, they work through the school day without any food to sustain them before setting off on the long walk home again in the afternoon. In most cases, home will be two or three dirt-floored shacks shared with their parents, livestock, a grandparent or two and on average, seven siblings.
When we arrived at Ndogo mid-afternoon, we discovered that the whole school, along with many of the parents, had spent the day preparing songs and dances to welcome us. Ndogo School is unusual in that all three major tribal groups (Kikuyu, Luo and Maasai) are represented and work together harmoniously. The mothers of each tribe greeted us in turn and then the children, happily grouped by age rather than tribal origin, offered their welcomes.
For those of us who enjoy a comfortable middle class existence in the U.K., nothing can prepare you for the crushing poverty of rural Africa. Roads are often all but impassable except by four wheel drive, townships are crowded and squalid and people have very little in the way of material possessions. Aids is endemic and deforestation for firewood is an ecological time bomb ticking away.
Yet, for all that, much of the Rift Valley is strikingly beautiful and the children we encountered were always neatly dressed in their school uniforms and invariably cheerful in the face of considerable adversity. They were also desperate to improve their lot by gaining the best possible education.
Neither political intervention nor massive foreign investment will solve Kenya’s problems. The answer instead lies in educating the country’s children; indeed the more immediate issues of Aids and ecological degradation can only be tackled effectively if the next generation understands the problems and is taught how to deal with them.
I must confess that I spent much of the four days we had in Kenya feeling humbled by the children that we met who, in spite of all their hardship and deprivation, had such a positive outlook on life and such a burning desire to make the most of what little they had.
While we can’t solve the problems of all the poor in Africa, we can help the children in this corner of Kenya. These children deserve our help and a small donation by you will make a huge difference to them and those who follow. Money that is donated can be “Gift Aided” and unlike any commercial charity, every penny raised will make its way to the Ndogo site. And, regardless of whether we raise the full sum or not, the children of Ndogo will benefit from our generosity.
In due course, the students of Ardingly will also benefit. Next February, we plan to send three staff and up to a dozen Lower Sixth Form students out to Kenya where they will divide their time between work on the Ndogo site and the Conservation Centre at the Kigio Wildlife Park. In years to come, this will become an annual expedition and, like our visits to The Gambia, will provide our students with what may well be a life-changing experience.
Please play your part in making this dream come true for the children of Ndogo.
John Franklin.
