In
2002 Ruth Waters from Swanland spent a Gap year to Kenya with
much of her time working at the Riverside Children’s Centre
in the Kawangware Slum in Nairobi. Her parents John & Shirley
Waters visited the corrugated iron school room with mud floor
where she had been working and were shocked at how happy the children
were despite having so little. The children had nothing to eat
or drink from 9am – 4pm.
When
they returned they told their friends in Swanland about the terrible
conditions and offered to start a feeding programme for the children.
Around this time John & Rena Downing also from Swanland had
gone to work in Nairobi and were able to keep an eye on the progress
at the school. Once the feeding programme started the numbers
at the school grew rapidly from 100 pupils to almost 500.
In
2004 Blair Jacobs from the BBC visited the school to make some
programmes for Look North and was amazed at what had been achieved
in such a short time. Shortly after the filming the school was
attacked by an armed gang and was rebuilt on a different site.
Pastor Hudson does a monthly
diary for the BBC.
Until
recently the school was thriving on the new site thanks to the
hard work and generosity to many people in Swanland. They employ
50 staff to teach & care for the pupils, which provides an
income for their families. The school is registered with the Kenya
Education Department for 477 pupils and has a small boarding section
for the orphans & refugees that live at the school.
