Building brighter Kenyan future

Published on isbi School News dated Wednesday 17th of October 2012

Globe-trotting students at Wisbech Grammar School have been carrying out community work in the stunning setting of Kenya.

In a Camps International project 28 pupils and two teachers have spent a month on expedition in the east African country, focusing on education and farming.

The team built foundations and plastered classrooms at two primary schools and some of the Wisbech students were given the opportunity to deliver lessons to their African counterparts in English, mathematics and science.

Camps International is concentrating its efforts on improving facilities for local communities to be able to support themselves with food and at a neighbourhood farm the Grammar School team dug a series of substantial holes and trenches to act as waste water recycling systems, creating water clean enough to irrigate crops.

Whilst on the south coast, expedition members became involved in beach clean-up projects and particularly the problem on the western Indian Ocean coast of flip-flops, which wash up on beaches and do not biodegrade.

The students collected a bag full of flip-flops and then set about turning them into ornaments and jewellery which could be sold in aid of local charities.

Team members also learned to scuba dive, venturing into the crystal waters of the equatorial coast and coming face to face with turtles, moray eels, nudibranchs and starfish.

Towards the end of the expedition the teenagers camped in a remote sacred forest and witnessed real Kenyan village life, marvelling at the elder's ability to scale a swaying coconut tree and watching a witch doctor healing a person by exorcising his tormenting spirits.

Lead teacher Deiniol Williams said: 'The pupils worked incredibly hard for two years in order to raise the funds to allow them to travel to Kenya. The effort that they put in over this period was rewarded by a truly life-changing experience.

'Every Kenyan person that we met was delighted to see us and genuinely thankful for the work that we did. We left a legacy in the communities that we visited and the country and its people certainly left a lasting memory with every member of the expedition team.'