Social Issue

A few years ago, the Kenyan Ministry of Education established that primary school should be free throughout the country, thanks to an improvement in budget allocations for this area. This fact increased the number of boys and girls going to school, but the educational infrastructures cannot adequately accommodate all the new students. The Tana River county has detected the worst results in the final examinations of primary and secondary education. Furthermore, a low level of literacy (30%) has been registered in this area, where girls and boys cannot receive an adequate education due to the lack of textbooks and poorly trained teachers.

Our Response

The Emmaus Mission wants to offer the children of the Hola area an adequate educational infrastructure. In 2005, the San José primary school was launched, with a capacity for 400 children. With the donation of the Netri Foundation, the aim is to implement a well-equipped library on the premises of this centre, which allows the children of this school and nine others around it to access the textbooks necessary for their education: reference volumes, encyclopedias, dictionaries or general culture books.

The fundamental objectives of the project are the following:

• Increase the educational level of boys and girls in ten schools.
• Offer students a space to study.
• Create the first open library in the entire Tana River county area.

Expected Social Impact

It is expected to benefit 4,000 students from the San José school and from nine schools near this educational center.