The people of Souris reached out recently to help a struggling school in a small village in Kenya. It started with the Village Feast, a one thousand meal fund raising BBQ last summer and ended at the school where a new cookhouse is now built and feeding 250 children. The feast was inspired by Souris businessman Alan MacPhee and headed up by celebrity chef Michael Smith. Its goal was to help at home by contributing to the Souris Food Bank and to help in Africa by teaming up with Farmers Helping Farmers to build a cookhouse for the Kinyinjere school in rural Kenya.
“Kenyan children frequently do not have enough to eat to allow them to concentrate on their studies,” said Teresa Mellish of Farmers Helping Farmers. “Food aid provides temporary relief but a cookhouse with an irrigated garden provides a sustainable program managed by the school parents and teachers.”
The funds raised were immediately put to work and the cookhouse is now built and serving meals. The school is in an area where Farmers Helping Farmers has worked for the last ten years bringing water and tree nursery projects to the local women’s group.
Farmers Helping Farmers delegates attended the official opening of the cookhouse at the Kinyinjere Primary School when they recently visited Kenya. Local dignitaries attended along with the 250 students of the school and their parents and the members of the Muchui Womens Group, one of Farmers Helping Farmers partner groups. Teresa Mellish had the privilege of cutting the ribbon which officially opened the cookhouse.
The cookhouse is about 15 feet by 60 feet in size. It includes an area to cook the food with three fuel efficient Botto-Solar cookers which use a fraction of the wood normally used in open fires. The smoke is vented outside. There is also an area to store the maize and beans provided by the parents. In addition, there is a washing area under cover outside and a room for an office.
The cookhouse will be used to prepare the morning porridge for the nursery age children and the lunch of githeri for the older children. Githeri is a cooked mixture of maize and beans supplemented with greens harvested from the school garden.
There is a plaque on the outside of the cookhouse recognizing the funds raised by the Souris Village Feast. During the opening festivities Mellish made a presentation about the people of Souris. She showed them photos of Souris and left the photos at the school. When Mellish reported back to the Souris group, Alan MacPhee, chairperson of the Souris Village Feast said, “I have a nice big smile on my face!” Pat O’Connor, member of the feast organizing committee said, “It sure gives me a satisfying feeling to see it.”
The kitchen garden was funded through the 2007 Christmas fund raising campaign by some staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Charlottetown. Drip irrigation was supplied to water the garden which produces green vegetables and onions for the school lunch.
“We know this will make such a difference to the school children,” said Mellish. “They will have a hot lunch which will allow them to do better in their school work. Many of these children would not otherwise have lunch.”
Winston Johnston of Farmers Helping Farmers also attended the opening. “The children all live on subsistence farms in the area,” he said. “They walk up to five kilometres each day to go to school.”
The driving force at the Kinyinjere school was Elizabeth Kirema, one of the teachers at the school. She is also the vice-chairperson of the Muchui Womens Group. She approached Farmers Helping Farmers for support for the cookhouse and has been responsible for getting the parents organized to supply the maize and beans for the children. Ken Mellish also attended the opening and said, “We can rely on leaders such as Elizabeth to get the job done.”
This school is twinned with the Tracadie Cross School. Mellish carried letters to the school from the school children there and brought letters back from the Kinyinjere school to the Tracadie Cross School. The Tracadie Cross School has also raised funds for the Kinyinjere school, including a water storage tank which collects and stores rain water from the school roof.
Farmers Helping Farmers is an Island-based, award-winning organization of community-minded people with agricultural backgrounds. Its goal is to assist Kenyan farmers in becoming more self-reliant in agricultural food production. The group assists with the development of small-scale, practical agricultural projects, focusing on direct, person-to-person interaction.