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ABOUT ME AND MY FAMILY!
Hello am Helen , Kenyan. Am 42years old and i live in Nyanza Lake Victoria Region. I stay in rental house in Homabay County, in homabay town. Am a single mother of three children, and i stay with other two children other than the three. Am a teacher by profession in the department of Early Years Education {EYE}.
We would love guest who can connect us with the funding for our young school to make it a success just the way it's explained well under the school information :) We also need a volunteer who can teach us more about ICT since right now most of the activities are done online and we are not exposed so much about it though we have got laptop for practice.
We are a very happy family and we expect our guest to be happy as well :) We are Christians though we respect peoples religion as long as you have let us know about it then we are good to go. So our volunteer should feel free to share with us about his lifestyle so that we don't interfere with it!
We don't have specific months for visits, the volunteers are invited anytime to our home especially if we don't have guests so feel free to talk to us anytime about your visit to Kenya and specifically Homabay County. Thank you!
INFORMATION ABOUT SCHOOLS (from our website, written by Volunteer)
Academy (Homabay Town) and Kids School & Talent Academy (Wiga Village) are two non-profit private primary schools in Western Kenya, owned and operated by Hellen Aketch. Serving over 200 children in total, the schools educate kids ages 1 year - 10 years, most of whom come from extremely impoverished homes. Kids is a registered Community Based Organization (CBO) and is in the application process to be registered by the Ministry of Education. The schools are Christian institutions and teach the Word of God and sing Gospel songs.
Despite the fact that many families in Kenya have a difficult time providing food for the family, people place great importance on education. Kids Academy and School & Talent Academy run as private institutions, therefore parents must pay for their child’s tuition. In return, they receive a much higher level of instruction for their kids and a stronger pupil to teacher ratio (Kids- average 20:1, Standard Public- average 45:1). That being said, many families are unable to cover the cost of private school tuition and so their children may not attend school at all. When possible, Kids Academy will waive the payment of the child, but this cannot be done for everyone. Currently only 30% of the 200+ students have paid in full.
Both academies teach Language (Swahili + English), Mathematics, Science, Creative Arts, Home Science, and Physical Education. They have recently added classes in “Life Skills” such as cleaning and taking care of your body (washing, brushing) and Sexual Education (preventing unplanned pregnancy and HIV/AIDS). Should funding allow, they hope to add a Talent department to foster Performing Arts, Sports, and Swimming.
Lower level school learnings begin at 8:00 am, and lasts until 12:00 noon, Primary school learnings begin 8:00 am and ends at 4:30 pm. The school in Homabay is a 10min walk from our house.
10-30 learners in each class face chalkboards in unfinished, open-window full-suited classrooms, often in dilapidated desks. When night falls and farm chores have been completed, pupils do their homework under battery-operated flashlights, paraffin oil candles and lanterned Lamps, or solar-powered lights.Despite these barriers, pupils study intently so they can succeed to secondary and beyond. Teachers are genuinely passionate about teaching, and pupils reciprocate this enthusiasm.
Recognizing that education is the key to further opportunity, we need sponsors, well-wishers, organization, donors and volunteers to provide uniforms, school levies, feeding program, teachers wages, so that orphaned, single-parent children and those from less privileged/disadvantaged/Less fortunate families can attend primary school—when they otherwise might not be able to attend, simply because they cannot afford a uniform, shoes, school subsidy levies or books.
Mission Statement-
Academy of Homabay County provides private quality education to the children of western Kenya. In addition to standard schooling subjects, the academies instruct children to become well rounded citizens in order to create a “whole child.” Kids works with families of all financial backgrounds to ensure equal education, transportation, and nutrition.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Charity Work
Art Projects
Language practice
Teaching
Babysitting and creative play
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
Help with Computers/ Internet
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
HOW VOLUNTEERS BENEFIT:
-Cultural exchange! We look forward to fully embracing you within our local culture and learning about yours
-Free housing- we are happy to provide you a free and safe place to live in exchange for your help with our school.
FREE TIME ACTIVITIES
Guests/Volunteers...
* Will be free to use their free time for excursions especially during weekends or selected days.
* Will be free to spend their free time in Local Parks like Ruma National park, Mfangno Island, watch international football matches in the local bars, visit a pool at the nearby Hotels, attend social functions or any other social places where they will meet other great guests/volunteers in the area.
* Admire and enjoy the Lake Victoria fresh and fine cool breeze- See all Species of different fresh water fish and even enjoy eating them!
* See and enjoy eating organic food cooked in the traditional way using traditional methods and the crops we grow for food.
Projects involving children
This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.
Help
VOLUNTEER TASKS
(The following was written by a previous volunteer on behalf of Hellen to make sure the needs are outlined clearly)
Our current greatest need is to improve our school. I am actively working to raise money in order to build a new School House. We also need additional funds for the feeding program at the school and to buy a school bus- ask us for website
The following tasks are needed in support of this mission.
FUNDRAISING:
- Organizing crowd funding in your home country. We started in Fundrazr Campaign in Oct 2021, but we need help sharing it everywhere possible!
- We need help finding LARGE donors through international Non-Profits and Companies. There are various funding opportunities for nonprofits like USAID, UNICEF, etc and we need help researching and understanding the options available to us. And then need your help contacting them.
- We need experts in grant writing to help us prepare and write professional grant proposals to relevant funding agencies.
- Design a brochure, presentation, or report to share with prospective donors
SPREADING THE WORD:
- Our current website is somewhat basic. We need help with SEO to optimize it.
- Our first volunteer made a compelling Video Tour for us, we need help promoting it to spread our mission.
- Social Media- Our first volunteer created a basic Facebook page for us, but it always needs updating. We do not have a good Instagram page and would love someone to set up a compelling page for our nonprofit to showcase our mission and work
WORKING WITH CHILDREN:
- Assist with teaching at school, either academically (such as English) or Extra Curricular (such as Football)
- Help in improving computer literacy to children (we have no computers here so best to bring your own)
- Engage with the children at home and at the school. They always are requesting more tourists to play with! They have a lot of free time and would love to learn your culture's songs and games.
HELPING AROUND THE COMPOUND:
-There's always lots to do around the home! Filling the water buckets in the home from the well, preparing meals for the family, sweeping, laundry, dishes... please come help us and learn the traditional way of doing things here!
**Do see something here you specialize in? Please feel free to contact us with YOUR IDEAS! We're very open!! We are just looking for Volunteers who are ready to collaborate and partner with us in the spirit to help us improve lives of the less fortunate children in the community.
Languages
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Swahili (Kiswahili): FluentThis host offers a language exchange
I'm interested in learning languages
Accommodation
ABOUT OUR HOUSE
We are a family of 5 in a 2 bedroom house. Please contact me to discuss as we want to make sure you are comfortable! All beds have a mosquito net.
We can only accommodate two guest of opposite sex or three guest of the same sex.
Water is available though it's not running. We have tap water outside though its captured into a well outside the house making it available all the time.
Electricity is available though sometimes but not much we have power blackout so we back it up with the small solar panels in the house.
We have got the squatting toilet in the house so a guest is entitled to use the toilet though you squat .
We have got a cat though it does not produce a lot of fur so should not be a problem so much to guest who are allergic to cats.
About food - we provide 1-2 meals per day.
We advise the guest to adjust to the our type of food though we allow the guest to feel free and prepare his or her meal by him/herself since he/she understand the receipts better than us.
We love the guest who is open and extrovert and who is able to share the experience from their country!
We are surrounded by the lake which is a good attraction for tourist as you view people doing fishing.Secondly we have Ruma National Park not far from where we stay ,we have got animals like tiger ,antelope, and many others. We as well boast of the historical sites like carvings which are found in Mfangano Island and we are capable of taking our guest to see those good sites.
What else ...
To get to HomaBay you will fly into Nairobi. From there you can take a bus directly to Homabay (~9hr) or fly into Kisumu (1hr). Kisumu is then ~2hr drive by Taxi or 2 by small busses.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
We have no wifi but we can we cheaply use the local networks to help us be online. Otherwise we use cell service for internet use. The electricity goes out sometimes (typically at night) so we use solar system.
Can possibly accept pets
Doors are left open during the day so best to only bring an "indoor/outdoor" animal. Otherwise we can leave it shut in one of the bedrooms. We do have one cat and many chickens.
How many Workawayers can stay?
Two
Hours expected
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
