The School
HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL
Barnabas held a vision to take care of and educate the disadvantaged children of Kitale to support the poorer families, orphans and single parents.
He wanted their children to aspire and succeed so they could reach their full potential. Barnabas saw great prospects ahead of them and was certain that with enough love, they would grow and feel equal to other children from privileged families.
He believed that through education, he could impart hope and a brighter future.
In 2000, Barnabas made a visit to the UK to visit his daughter Irene Fyfield. Together they visited Mount Zion Pentecostal Church in Chapeltown Leeds, UK. Here Barnabas met the late Pastor Daniel and Pastor Irma for the first time, who ran the Pentecostal church. Barnabas became inspired and was later baptised in 2003.
He trained to become a Pastor and built a sister church, Mount Zion, Kitale, Kenya, for the villagers. In 2015, his vision transpired into developing a school from the back room of his church. Barnabas employed teachers who began teaching the children and offering an education which follows the Kenyan primary syllabus/curriculum.
Sadly, in 2016, Pastor Barnabus Simiyu passed away.
After her father’s passing, Irene was left to fulfil his promise that she would finish building the school for the children of Kitale. It has been a promise that Irene has kept and has worked tirelessly to fulfill through raising funds to oversee the ongoing development of the school since her father’s passing in 2016.
Irene’s quest is to develop a purpose-built school that is of the same standard as Government public schools in Kenya with furbished classrooms; sufficient educational resources; a library; a computer suite; a play area; a dining room; toilets; and clean water facilities.
Unfortunately, the status of poverty for families in Kitale means that parents are unable to afford to send their children to school. These out-of-school children are then at risk of migrating to the streets, or in some cases, being taken to children’s homes.
Irene’s desire is to build an infrastructure to save these children from ill-fate.
The school caters for up to 110 children and offers a full Kenyan education syllabus, which starts from nursery through to Standard 4 (the equivalent to a Year 4 education curriculum in the UK). To make it fair and accessible to all children, the school ensures it provides FREE education and FREE school meals.
We currently employ 4 teachers and a cook who cater for up to 110 children. We also fundraise to pay the staff which equates to £200 per month, and £100 per month to feed the children. These costs are partially generated from supplying home baked cakes to local shops here in the UK.
Planning permission has been approved to build 8 classrooms, 8 toilets, kitchen, dining area, staff room, stock room, computer room, library and a school office. To date, we have been able to fund 2 classrooms and 4 toilets from the funds which has been raised from the UK. All building materials and labour are sourced locally, by doing so we are promoting growth within the community.
We are seeking to raise another £6,000 to complete the current work on the 2 classrooms by December 2023. This will coincide with the start of the academic year which commences in January 2024. We aim to complete the whole school build project by December 2025 with everyone’s kind help and support.
With your support, so far we have raised £8,500 through events, donations and our Target 100 campaign.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
