For the children at Spurgeons Academy in Kibera slum in Kenya, when schools closed in March 2020 due to the coronavirus lockdown, that was the end of access to education for them for that year.
Homeschooling just isn’t an option when your home is 3m x 3m, housing an average family of 6 -8 peeople, with no electricity or running water. And so, for 9 months of last year, the children had to cope without school, knowing that as a result they would be dropping behind, maybe have to repeat a year, and seeing their dreams of being able to climb out of poverty through education slipping away.
But thankfully, that dream is now one that they can start to get a stronger grip on again as the school was allowed to open it’s doors again in January in line with government guidelines.
The children have to wear face-masks (even the little 3 and 4 yr olds), sit at separate desks, have staggered playtimes to reduce congestion, and get their temperature taken on arrival and departure. But they are back in school, and able to learn again, as well as enjoy a hot meal again, as the following photos show.
Many thanks to all those donors who enabled sufficient new desks to be made to allow the children to return to school, and also to Global Care International supporters who funded two new classrooms for the school, which has helped to reduce congestion.
