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In 2012 Inverness County Cares (ICC) came together with the purpose of providing for the daily needs and delivering education opportunities for children in the developing world. The St Charles Lwanga School in Nairobi, Kenya was the first beneficiary and a relationship was created, which helped the school get a good start and laid the foundation for sustainability. This happened in cooperation with other partners in Vermont, Puerto Rico and the Netherlands. 

Three years ago ICC and Chalice Canada developed a partnership working on a Community Partnership Project (CPP) with the St Charles Lwanga School. The three-year CPP with the St Charles Lwanga School is now complete. This project saw ICC provide the school with approximately $250,000 toward operating expenses and supplying the children with the necessities of life. Chalice in turn contributed more than $60,000 annually to this project, for each of the last three years. It was an honor, to be chosen to work with Chalice, and we want to express our sincere thanks. We are deeply grateful for their guidance, accounting expertise and presence on the ground in Kenya. 

 ICC has approximately 15 core members with many others who are always willing to provide assistance during fundraising projects.  ICC is forever grateful for the selfless people who have given so many hours of their time to ensure that the daily, weekly and yearly responsibilities of the organization were taken care of. 

ICC also wishes to thank those who supported our fundraising projects, donated to our fundraising, and to the corporate donations we received. A special thanks goes out to the students at Dalbrae, Bayview, Inverness and NSCC. We want to thank the Reporter for their continued support in sharing information concerning events at the school and keeping readers up to date on the activities of ICC.

We also wish to thank our Honorary Board members who lent their good name to our cause.

Although the project is over, individual relationships continue, as many of our ICC members had frequent contact with the school and actually spent time on location at the school in Kenya.  

ICC is presently contemplating our next steps and looking toward a similar project in the future…and will continue to collect recyclables in the truck trailers in Mabou and Port Hood.  Many thanks to the very generous people of Inverness County, and surrounding areas. You have made this project a resounding success. 

Betty Jane Cameron, West Mabou, NS has just returned from her third consecutive trip to the St Charles Lwanga School (SCLS) in Nairobi, Kenya. This year she was there for three months and visited the SCLS as well as many other areas all over Kenya.

Betty Jane reports:

It is good to be back, but hard to leave the school, students and teaching staff. I also met many wonderful people in other parts of Kenya who welcomed me into their lives, their homes and their work.  Those I lived with are so caring for each other’s needs and supportive of all efforts to help their communities grow, their parishes flourish and support their children’s education opportunities. The students in turn strive their best and plan to help their families and communities to grow beyond poverty and live with peace, dignity and security.

There are often enormous obstacles to overcome. We try to help drug addicted students at St Charles Lwanga, but we have no medications and limited counselling. They tell us that most have been addicted since age 8 or 9 years old. I spent a little time in the large Mukuru slum visiting drug addicted primary students, mostly ages mostly ages 6-10. These children are in a program at school where they are housed and taught separately for one year with their own teachers, counsellors and social workers, with their families getting support and help. Talking with these children gave me new insight into the reality our students face in their struggle. With the dream of a new school getting closer we at St Charles Lwanga will be able to provide similar programs and perhaps use the current school as a rehab centre. It is so important that the new school will be in a small rural community away from the city, closer to the homes of many of our students in HomaBay County. It will be in the beautiful highlands of Western Kenya near Lake Victoria, with fertile land for agriculture, recreation/sports field and in every way a much healthier environment.

There are so many stories and memories that crowd my mind. Everywhere we visited there was laughter, tears, hugs and promises to return to try help and always remember. It is the friendships formed that keeps me returning to this special place – and I feel blessed, privileged and grateful to be a part of their lives.

I am lucky to have a young girl Tracey planning on coming to live with me and study engineering at STFX. She volunteered at our school after graduation in December. It is a good opportunity for all of us to meet and welcome her to our homes and share our culture as she and her family have welcomed me.

This spring Inverness County Cares will revisit their long-range plan for their involvement with The St Charles Lwanga School. As all guardians we hope to see our project ‘grow up’ and become independent and self-sustainable. To realize this, the school needs to move to an area where there is ample space for the school compound and areas for gardens and fields for crops. The present day St Charles Lwanga School in Ruai, Nairobi had developed a reputation as an excellent educational institution. With this status they will be able to attract fee-paying students and continue to serve the students who cannot afford to pay fees.

The school administration has identified an area in Western Kenya in the Lake Victoria vicinity where the soil is fertile and rainfall abundant. Purchasing land in this area would take children from the influences of the city of Nairobi, and most importantly enable the students to concentrate on agriculture, which will supply the school with food and an income to support the needs of the school.

The University of Vermont and volunteers from GoGlobal have developed a program where students from St Charles Lwanga School will work cooperatively with the Perma-Culture Institute of Kenya and form alliances with the University of Nairobi. It is the intent of the Vermont delegation, to train students at SCL in organic farming practices, in order to provide the new school with guidance and expert help to develop their agricultural program. It is the expectation that this program will transition into a community agriculture college where the students from SCL will be able to acquire post secondary diplomas in agricultural practices. Following this trend it is the belief that this college and its graduates will be able to disseminate and share the agricultural expertise with the nearby communities. Sharing this knowledge of agricultural practices will enable residents to take part in community based initiatives to improve the agricultural knowledge and increase their standard of living.

Thanks to the generosity of their supporters Inverness County Cares has been able to reach their goal of $60,000 per year for the past three years. The new school land requires an additional $30,000 of which generous supporters have already donated $16,500. When the land is purchased, other funding partners (not ICC) will begin negotiations to determine the specifics of the new school and the funding particulars.

Betty Jane Cameron will return home on the 29^th of April with many stories and new insights into the St Charles Lwanga School. We thank our supporters who make all this possible. For more information see our webpages.

Inverness County Cares (ICC) is a community aid organization based in Inverness County, Nova Scotia. ICC has worked to provide for the educational and daily life needs of the 280 students at the St Charles Lwanga Secondary School (SCLSS) since 2012. The students of SCLSS are housed in dormitories on half acre on which the school and all buildings are situated. For many students this is their only chance to obtain a secondary education. Mostly all the students had a history of sporadic school attendance due to lack of money for school fees. Because of this they truly appreciate the opportunity to learn and are very serious about this opportunity to gain a secondary education.

The conditions at the school are crowded, with classrooms and living areas past the maximum occupancy. Their diet is simple and nutritious, mainly, beans, corn, Sukuma Wiki (collard greens), cabbage and occasionally tomatoes, with meat as a rare luxury.

The school is located close to the Nairobi International airport. This is an area that is rapidly being encroached on by the city of Nairobi and the influence of the Kibera Slums which are nearby.

The climate and growing conditions in this area are not suitable for farming or even small garden plots. The school grounds are very crowded and there are two seasons of very little rain, which turns the ground into a cement-like terrain with deep cracks. Water is supplied by a rainwater collection system (supplied by Living Water Africa), channeling rainwater from the roofs of all the school buildings into an 80,000 liter tank. Drinking water is supplied by Nairobi City Water, which is stored in a tank on the school grounds. There are no showers (bucket water bathing) and six, two-stall pit latrines provide the 280 students with toilet services.

Plans are in progress for a new school in the HomaBay area of South Western Kenya, near Lake Victoria. This new school will be located in an area with a climate much more favourable to sustainable farming on a 10 acre plot of land. Although the need is critical there are many obstacles that must be overcome before the new school is a reality. Anyone who wishes to financially support these student and school initiatives may do so by sending a cheque to Inverness County Cares, PO Box 99, Judique, NS, B0E 1P0.

Next month’s newspaper article: plans for a new school and the process of educating the students, teachers and communities near the school on farming methods that will work toward making the school self sustaining.

For more information please visit   http://lwangachildren.com/

1st- Betty Jane Cameron (second on right) with Dutch visitors. 2- Exam time in classroom, 3-Classes held outside, 4- Students, 5-Sustainable farming lessons.