Inverness County Cares Acquires Additional Partners
Inverness County Cares (ICC) in partnership with Chalice Canada supports the St Charles Lwanga Secondary School (SCLSS) in Ruai, Nairobi, Kenya. The school provides an education for 280 students who are either homeless, orphaned or from families struggling to survive on an income that does not include a place in the budget for school fees. We are proud to say that reports out of Kenya report that the SCLSS is gaining a reputation as a well managed school with a strong emphasis on serving students’ varied needs.
One of our main goals is independence and sustainability for the school. We are working with this proverb in mind. “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Over the past three years ICC and SCLSS and more recently Chalice, have forged a working partnership with the Vermont Center for International Learning Partnership (VCILP). This is a Burlington, Vermont, based group interested in promoting learning in Kenya based on sustainable agricultural practices.
On graduation from SCLSS students are faced with the problem of an inability to attend post-graduate institutions due to a lack of funds. VCILP is working toward the establishment of an agricultural college, which will be able to accommodate the SCLSS students and with fees that will be affordable for the SCLSS students.
VCILP representatives have visited the SCLSS on several occasions and have fostered a partnership between the University of Nairobi, University of Vermont School of Agriculture, Community Development and Applied Economics Program. VCILP has connected SCLSS to the Permaculture Research Institute of Kenya (PRI-Kenya) and students and school leaders have already begun preliminary training in sustainable agricultural practices.
This partnership has led to pilot projects where school leaders have been trained in sustainable agriculture. This is in preparation for the time when SCLSS will move from their present cramped location to a spacious new campus with fertile soil and ample rainfall providing the opportunity to grow their own food and also grow food to provide an income to support the school.
https://lwangachildren.com/
https://www.goglobalvt.org/about-us
http://chalice.ca/