We are proud to have linked over 1,000 Scottish and Kenyan school children as part of our school child twinning programme ‘Connecting Children, Creating Chances’ which aims to provide the children with a better understanding and level of appreciation for what life is like for a child in the country of their partner school.
As a partner, your class would support a primary school child who are on our waiting list for support in Kenya. The purpose of the programme is:
- To offer the children of both countries a window to the world where they can learn more about a childhood, life and upbringing that is similar yet so very different from their own.
- To encourage/introduce the children in the UK and Kenya to fundraising towards the school fees, uniform, shoes and school meals of other children in Kenya.
The children that we seek sponsors for currently face a variety of challenges in life such as going days without food, desperate living conditions and often parents/guardians are unable to afford their school fees. Many of the families we work with are single parent families earning at most £2 per day from casual laboring jobs.
The program is enabling these Kenyan children to have the same chance in life that our children at home in the UK can often take for granted.
We also hope that it will lay the foundations of potential long term friendships between the children.
“Our current Year 6 class are now in their second year of supporting GEF. The children really enjoy coming up with ways to fundraise each term and always find a way to get staff involved too.
At St Peter’s, we always have a theme for each term. Recently, we had the theme, ‘let no one enter your world without leaving it better and happier.’ Although our children’s and those of GEF’ worlds don’t literally meet, through letters and fundraising efforts, they do.
When the children hear about and see photos of the projects that the money they have raised has gone towards, they feel pride and it makes it more real for them; they are helping others. We are looking forward to continuing our link and supporting the amazing work of GEF. “
– Ashleigh, St Peters School, Bolton
The programme sees:
- Your school/class linked as a pen pal who they write back and fore throughout the year.
- Each school prepares letters on areas such as culture, water, animals, healthcare, food, language, home, sports, hobbies, homework, water, cooking, playground and family.
‘I’ve really loved exchanging letters with Daniel and Daisy and I can’t wait to hear from them again. I’ve always got so many questions!’ – Freya, Hazlehead Primary student, Scotland
Whilst part of our work is to create immediate opportunities for disadvantaged children through the payment of school fees, we believe that our schools programme will help to further create a sustainable and long term benefit to large numbers of children in Kenya and Scotland.
For more information please contact us on info@gathimbaedwardsfoundation.org
