Planning for building started in the summer of 2009, and with Wangari still in the U.K it was left to her brother Peter to help supervise the work. Without his help it would have been almost impossible to start. At first it was necessary to clear and level the ground before the site could be marked out. Then the raw stones were hewed from a local quarry, manhandled onto a truck and brought to the site where the truck was unloaded, again by hand. If you think it looks like hard work, you are not wrong. These photos are from September 2009.
Once the ground was prepared and levelled the footings were dug out. Again the work was done by hand, and by mid September 2009 there were sufficient materials brought to the site for the build to be started. Broken stone was used to line the trenches and the floor areas, and again everything was manhandled into place.
As already mentioned, most of the heavy work here is done by hand, and that’s true as well for mixing concrete. Ready-Mix doesn’t deliver to Naivasha, and all the cement and concrete has to be hand mixed, and if the proportions aren’t right there are likely to be problems with the integrity of the structure later on.
We can’t emphasize enough just how hard the work was, and how little the workmen earn. The weather too does not help, it may be scorching hot, pouring with rain, or sometimes pretty cold. In the photos below you can see that every stone block has to be chipped into shape by hand, then lifted to its position in the wall. The shape of the school can be seen in the background, and it’s at the stage when those blocks have to be lifted onto a makeshift wooden scaffold before being worked into place.
The first phase, the shells of the main classrooms, were almost finished by the end of 2009, and while work continued there, the second phase was started. These photos show the main classrooms in the background, with the floors of the kitchen and dormitory just under construction. Mixing and laying the cement screed was a major operation involving about 20 men with no mechanised help.
This second phase of the build was almost a repeat of the first, but by now the school was beginning to take shape. Work slowed when funds ran low, then picked up again as more donations came in. Eventually the emphasis turned to planning and equipping the inside of the school ready for the first children. The last photo shows the classrooms completed, with the dormitory and kitchen almost ready to have windows and doors fitted.
Our Second Year
When the classroom building was complete late in 2010, the dormitory and the kitchen were still under construction. The weather was not always kind, and sometimes the work was slowed by rain. The dormitory shell was eventually completed (without doors or windows) and the kitchen floor next door was laid. By November 2010 Wangari was back in Kenya visiting the remote villages in the area trying to identify children who could be the first pupils at the school. Altogether 65 children were admitted as day students, aged between 5 and 12.
In the first few months the children still had no school uniforms, but a donation of boys shorts and some red jumpers soon changed that. At first Wangari had to buy water and have it delivered, then transferred to a plastic tank where the children would queue to top up bottles and mugs but at one stage the tank developed a leak, and some water was lost. A cow was bought as a personal donation by Helen Sullivan of the Karuri School Project committee. This might seem to be not top of the priority list, but the cow would provide milk for the school which would otherwise be too expensive, and it would in time produce a calf or two, adding to the schools assets. The kitchen walls and roof were built of wooden slats to allow plenty of ventilation, necessary because of the wood burning stoves.
When the school opened in January 2011 there were no proper toilets. The children used their own latrines while the staff had a separate latrine. Neither were satisfactory, but they did serve a purpose until damaged by storms and floods later in the year. It was hoped to have a septic tank installed, but progress was very slow, and the school had to continue to make do with these basic latrines.
The dormitories were still not ready and the children, the head and four teachers and the cook had to travel daily into school. A few more day students were admitted, but cooking was still done out in the open. A ground level plastic water tank was installed, and two wood burning stoves ordered.
Sheila Dowling and Patricia Moore from the Karuri School Project visited the school in May (at their own expense) to help assess what was most needed and how the future planning could be made more effective. In the summer a fund raising event back in Northampton raised enough money to buy a second cow. A second, larger, plastic water tank was bought in the summer, and to supplement the bought water a pipe was connected rather precariously to the roof guttering so that rainwater could be collected; you can see this in one of the photos.
As the first academic year drew to a close the school celebrated with a ceremony. They had overcome some serious problems on the way, but the children were now well established in the school, there were still no ceilings, the latrines were still going, and cooking was still quite difficult. The following year would see some stability with many improvements in the buildings and some settling down to hard academic work.
Learn More
The Story Since
The Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School delivers education for orphaned, poor and vulnerable children in the Kahuru district of Kenya.
Wangari’s Story
Learn more about Wangari, her dream and the road she took to bring it to fruition.
Our Finances
View our finances and the details shared with the Charity Commission.