Thank you very much for all these insights. I think linking these children with their colleagues elsewhere is a very good idea. They could benefit from funds and other materials that the children in other parts of the world donot need and are willing to give somebody else like happened with the donation of a number of things to Kabondo by the staff and students of Carson Graham secondary school in Canada. I think partnerships with churches and schools, colleges will do in this respect. In the United Kingdom students of around five universities usually donate funds yearly amongst themselves and then come to Kenya for around 2 weeks staying with the children and then giving their donation to the community and helping out with any project work. This happens to an organization in Nyando district of Nyanza province. So i think what Mary is talking about is realistic and workable if we could find neighbours to link us up to such churches or schools.
The orphans of Kabondo are scattered in a number of schools and churches and because of the high number of orphans we could find an average of 20 to 30 orphans per school or church. This is just the number we have in our records but there are several hundred out there in each school. A school of 700 pupils could have 250-300 partial and total orphans for example.
However, most of these are about linking schools so that they can share information between teachers or set up penpal schemes between students or work on joint projects, rather than for raising money. Although its possible that one could lead to the other...
For that to work, the schools around Kabondo would have to want to get actively involved. And the money raised would probably need to go to the school rather than to individual students (although could be used for things like equipment etc)
So... if the main aim is fundraising, the personal approach by someone who has contacts with schools, churches etc in their area would probably work better. In that case, they may be able to link them directly to your organisation rather than to a local school. Would be nice to find a way to get the kids involved so that they get the chance to communicate with other kids around the world too. Unfottunately I don't have any good contacts to do this. Barb, it sounds like you do!
Most of these groups are part of a network called GROOTS Kenya http://www.groots.org/members/kenya.htm who could be another source of information and advice for Eric's group, especially if a lot of women are involved in the work in Kabondo.
We are Petrie van der Zanden and Loes Beukers and we are two students of Gymnasium Beekvliet in Sint-Michielsgestel, The Netherlands. We are both 17 years old and this is our last year on college. We are interested in development issues and in people around the world. We also like this project because it has practical benefit. The coming 6,5 months we will be working for 80 hours on your project.
Our school is cooperating with Nabuur to do assignments for some Nabuur villages. We chose the village Kabondo because we think it is important that orphans go to school and learn the basic skills. We were also very positive about the description of this village. We read the common project-plan and we were inspired by that plan.
We make plans to draw up a programme by which the orphans learn how to set up a vegetable garden and maintain it. Then they will process the self-created products, so they can eat them. We want all these activities to take place at and around school. Our theme is therefore school gardening.
Our goals:
We want to teach the children how they can support themselves in their basic needs. We have a list with things we think are important in our project.
Knowledge about agriculture
Hygiene
Cooking and processing the products
The value of food
Group forming and the feeling of harmony
Let them experience that they can achieve things of great value by undertaking things
Teach them how they can protect their vegetable garden against extended influences, for example animals and weather conditions and indirect teaching how to protect themselves.
What do you think of this idea? Do you think that it has got practical benefit for Kabondo? Do you have any extras for our plan? We are looking forward to collaborate with you and we hope to hear soon from you.
We are looking forward to putting effort in this village and we hope that our plan will be a good addition.
Thank you very much
Kind regards,
Petrie van der Zanden and Loes Beukers
My name is Maartje van Eeden and I represent a group of four 17-year old students from “Gymnasium Beekvliet” in Sint-Michielsgestel, in the South of the Netherlands. We will be spending about 80 hours on a project for your organisation in the next six and a half months. Our school is working with NABUUR on this assignment for some NABUUR Villages.
We went through all the discussions and resources, which we found very inspirational and we would really like to devote ourselves to this project and the people in Kabondo. We are interested in developing countries and the people (especially the orphans) who live there and we would like to do something to help. Another reason we would like to do this project is because of the practical benefits and because it would give us the opportunity to have direct contact with people in Kenya.
We have discussed what kind of assignment we could do and have thought of one in which we could give help and advice about the hygiene, the importance of clean drinking water and infections related to the use of unclean water. Perhaps we could research how water can be cleaned and how people can avoid being infected by contaminated water. We would especially like to carry out research of a medical nature.
Could you let us know if you think this would be a worthwhile project or if you have any other ideas or suggestions?
We are looking forward to collaborate with you and hope one of you will answer us soon.
Thank you very much
Warm regards,
Maartje van Eeden
Linda Nijhof
Lieke Olijslagers
Charlotte Crooijmans
Thank you very much all of you for taking the initiative to identify with the problems facing children in Kenya. I am very interested in any kind of activity or support that will help children go to school and stay there, improve living standards, empower them to be able to grow into responsible and self reliant adults and above all safeguard their rights. You are free to choose a task that interests you and helps uplift the living standards of children.
I am interested in what you intend to do and any other you would want to do and i believe with such small beginnings we can in the end ange the world in ways that are beyond our wildest imaginations.
Feel most welcome to Kabondo and the project and i look forward to working with you very closely for thye benefit of our disadvantaged children.
Once again thank you for choosing Kabondo as your project.
Thank you for your reaction on our message and giving us a hearty welcome to Kabondo. We are glad that you agree with our plans. At the moment, we are looking for a more specific task that could help the people who live in Kabondo. We have to keep in mind that it is necessary that we can finish our task in the next six and half months we are working on this project. We are intent upon thinking about a proper task currently and we will come up with more suggestions soon.
Warm regards,
Maartje van Eeden
Linda Nijhof
Lieke Olijslagers
Charlotte Crooijmans
Glad to have you here. You mention an interest in water and medically related areas. Here are some specific tasks for that as well as some others that are not related to these.
1. Water and sanitation - develop materials for teaching water and sanitation such as posters and so forth. We do have a bunch of these already from CAWST (www.cawst.org). There is also research that could be done into filtration and purification methods - again we have quite a bit of information from CAWST already, particularly on the biosand filter. There is also a discussion in the Water and Sanitation group on Nabuur here that may be of help.
2. Malaria prevention and treatment - again research this and develop materials for use. There has been a game developed through VIP for use in other projects...
3. Deworming - A literature review on best practices and review of costs associated with running a deworming program and informatoin projects operating in Kenya that work on this. Worms are one of the biggest causes of illness and easily prevented by filtration of water and also by inexpensive treatments.
4. Research and compile information relating to avocado growth and production and possible ways of extracting - we already have a good start on this, but there is always more information to gather as well as summarize all that has been done so far and possible options for the future. A report from another group in the Netherlands has already been compiled on this - but not specific to Kenya.
5. Research into possible uses of sweet potatoes - this was mentioned by the community. They wondered if there were any things that could be done with sweet potatoes beyond selling for cash crops. One person mentioned starch - but no other research has been done on that.
6. Develop marketing materials for Kabondo - this could include a newsletter template, brochure and more content for the website. It could also include a video or slide show. I have many photos and maybe Eric could gather more footage? This has been something that has been on and off for a while and it would be good to finish up. The only piece partially completed so far has been the website - but much more content
is needed.
These are just a few areas. There are a number of other areas that could be examined if these are not of interest.
We are Karin Pijnappels (18 years old) and Kim van de Loo (17 years old) and we attend Gymnasium Beekvliet in Sint Michielsgestel, in the south of the Netherlands. We can spend 80 hours on a project for Kabondo in the next 5,5 months. Our school is working with Nabuur on this assignment but is also working for some other Nabuur villages.
We read a lot of information about Kabondo and your project and we were inspired by what we read. We are interested in helping the orphans of Kabondo, we think they should attend school and learn the basics about useful stuff like hygiene but also about other things. We would like to do something to help because we hope it will have practical benefits for the people in Kabondo and we also think this is a good opportunity to have direct contact with the people in Kenya.
We’d especially like to inform the children of Kabondo about HIV/AIDS, how to prevent it and how to deal with it. We’d like to help you as good as possible. We also thought of ways to reach the children, maybe you have any suggestions?
We hope this collaboration will be useful for Kabondo, we are looking forward to this project and hope to hear of you soon!
a few weeks ago we posted a message in this project room.
We had the idea that we could help the orphans in Kabondo to set up a school-gardening programm.
We are going to the same school as Linda, Lieke, Maartje and Charlotte and we read the message that you send to them with some tasks from different areas. We talked with them and we thought it was a good idea that we process the following task in our project:
5. Research into possible uses of sweet potatoes - this was mentioned by the community. They wondered if there were any things that could be done with sweet potatoes beyond selling for cash crops. One person mentioned starch - but no other research has been done on that.
What do you think of this idea?
We had contact with Ken Hargesheimer and he send us a list with things the people in Kabondo could cultivate: Maize, tomatoes, okra, squash, watermelon, cantelope, beans, peas, endamame soybeans [very high in protein], spaghetti squash [they can grow spaghetti].
If you have any recomments or ideas about our task, please feel welcome to share them with us. We would appreciate your opinion. We are curious how you feel about our ideas.
Thank you very much for giving us ideas that could help us with our project. We are especially interested in deworming and research into water and sanitation.
We want to acquire information about the causes of the worm-infections, the consequences and possible methods that can prevent or dispute these worm-infections. Subsequently we can compare these methods and choose the best one. It could also be interesting to expend our project by research that could be done into filtration and purification methods.
Before we start with our research, we would like to know what kind of worms causes the biggest problems in Kabondo so we can base our research on these worms. Can you help us with that?
We’ll keep you posted with our developments.
Kind regards,
Maartje van Eeden
Lieke Olijslagers
Linda Nijhof
Charlotte Crooijmans
I can help out in any way you need. Eric will be the best place to start to find out information on the types of worms that most commonly affect the children in Kabondo.
As for filtration, one of the best sources is CAWST (Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology). If you visit the group on Nabuur called Water and Sanitation, you can get copies of manuals and reports regarding filtration and various methods. They are listed under the drinking water section. There are also copies of posters and other information throughout the postings in the group. I hope you refer to them, as they are very good. Eric has also received some basic training on the biosand filter this past July, which is effective in removing worms, however the application is for use at the household level.
Let me know what further information you require!
Best of luck and looking forward to working with you!
Good to have you here! Welcome to Kabondo. We are glad that you would like to work on this.
Regarding this task, the best place to start would be with Eric. He can give you more information on the specifics of sweet potato production in Kabondo. Ken is a great source too. He has lots of information. I think it would be good to find out about the nutritional value of sweet potato, compare the available varieties, compare growing methods, etc., and also look into what can be done with sweet potato that will add more value, meaning the ability to sell the product for a higher price (and would be in demand). This may mean looking into alternative uses of sweet potato, as mentioned, starch.
As I said, Eric will be the best person to start with.
Once you have decided on what you wish to pursue, would you like me to open a specific task on the topic to discuss with the other neighbours and to keep things in one place?
Thank you for this warm discussion.
This group is also doing great; to take commitment is not a little thing! Thank you for this.
I would like to inform you that In Buterere Community, we have started to discuss on such topics too. Simply copy or click on the link and see. Furthermore, cooperation between Kabondo and Burundi/Buterere can be a great idea?
We have thought about what we wanted to pursue and we have decided to mix a few points of you with some of our own ideas. We want to do research after the following ideas of you:
- nutritional value of sweet potato
- compare the available varieties
- compare growing methods
- what can be done with sweet potato that will add more value (meaning the ability to sell the product
for a higher price)
And as we said earlier, we would like to mix them with our own ideas about school gardening which we have published earlier.
It would be nice if you want to open a specific task on the topic.
Hello Mary/Barb,
Thank you very much for all these insights. I think linking these children with their colleagues elsewhere is a very good idea. They could benefit from funds and other materials that the children in other parts of the world donot need and are willing to give somebody else like happened with the donation of a number of things to Kabondo by the staff and students of Carson Graham secondary school in Canada. I think partnerships with churches and schools, colleges will do in this respect. In the United Kingdom students of around five universities usually donate funds yearly amongst themselves and then come to Kenya for around 2 weeks staying with the children and then giving their donation to the community and helping out with any project work. This happens to an organization in Nyando district of Nyanza province. So i think what Mary is talking about is realistic and workable if we could find neighbours to link us up to such churches or schools.
The orphans of Kabondo are scattered in a number of schools and churches and because of the high number of orphans we could find an average of 20 to 30 orphans per school or church. This is just the number we have in our records but there are several hundred out there in each school. A school of 700 pupils could have 250-300 partial and total orphans for example.
Eric
Hi Eric and Barb
Thanks for all the info.
There are a lot of organisations who will help to arrange partnerships between schools. Some are listed at
http://www.nabuur.com/modules/wiwimod/index.php?villageid=279&actionId=4... and scroll down until you find Twin Schools. There will be many others.
However, most of these are about linking schools so that they can share information between teachers or set up penpal schemes between students or work on joint projects, rather than for raising money. Although its possible that one could lead to the other...
For that to work, the schools around Kabondo would have to want to get actively involved. And the money raised would probably need to go to the school rather than to individual students (although could be used for things like equipment etc)
So... if the main aim is fundraising, the personal approach by someone who has contacts with schools, churches etc in their area would probably work better. In that case, they may be able to link them directly to your organisation rather than to a local school. Would be nice to find a way to get the kids involved so that they get the chance to communicate with other kids around the world too. Unfottunately I don't have any good contacts to do this. Barb, it sounds like you do!
Mary
Hi Barb
This is not directly related to any of the open tasks, but thought I would post it anyway, especially after reading Tobias's story...
It popped up apparently at random while searching for info on avocade.
A page of examples of how women have been organising home-based care for people with HIV/AIDS in Kenya - http://www.afrusaids.org/resources.html
Most of these groups are part of a network called GROOTS Kenya http://www.groots.org/members/kenya.htm who could be another source of information and advice for Eric's group, especially if a lot of women are involved in the work in Kabondo.
Mary
Dear Neighbours, Eric Ochanji and Barb Briggs,
We are Petrie van der Zanden and Loes Beukers and we are two students of Gymnasium Beekvliet in Sint-Michielsgestel, The Netherlands. We are both 17 years old and this is our last year on college. We are interested in development issues and in people around the world. We also like this project because it has practical benefit. The coming 6,5 months we will be working for 80 hours on your project.
Our school is cooperating with Nabuur to do assignments for some Nabuur villages. We chose the village Kabondo because we think it is important that orphans go to school and learn the basic skills. We were also very positive about the description of this village. We read the common project-plan and we were inspired by that plan.
We make plans to draw up a programme by which the orphans learn how to set up a vegetable garden and maintain it. Then they will process the self-created products, so they can eat them. We want all these activities to take place at and around school. Our theme is therefore school gardening.
Our goals:
We want to teach the children how they can support themselves in their basic needs. We have a list with things we think are important in our project.
Knowledge about agriculture
Hygiene
Cooking and processing the products
The value of food
Group forming and the feeling of harmony
Let them experience that they can achieve things of great value by undertaking things
Teach them how they can protect their vegetable garden against extended influences, for example animals and weather conditions and indirect teaching how to protect themselves.
What do you think of this idea? Do you think that it has got practical benefit for Kabondo? Do you have any extras for our plan? We are looking forward to collaborate with you and we hope to hear soon from you.
We are looking forward to putting effort in this village and we hope that our plan will be a good addition.
Thank you very much
Kind regards,
Petrie van der Zanden and Loes Beukers
Dear Neighbours, Eric Ochanji & Barb Briggs,
My name is Maartje van Eeden and I represent a group of four 17-year old students from “Gymnasium Beekvliet” in Sint-Michielsgestel, in the South of the Netherlands. We will be spending about 80 hours on a project for your organisation in the next six and a half months. Our school is working with NABUUR on this assignment for some NABUUR Villages.
We went through all the discussions and resources, which we found very inspirational and we would really like to devote ourselves to this project and the people in Kabondo. We are interested in developing countries and the people (especially the orphans) who live there and we would like to do something to help. Another reason we would like to do this project is because of the practical benefits and because it would give us the opportunity to have direct contact with people in Kenya.
We have discussed what kind of assignment we could do and have thought of one in which we could give help and advice about the hygiene, the importance of clean drinking water and infections related to the use of unclean water. Perhaps we could research how water can be cleaned and how people can avoid being infected by contaminated water. We would especially like to carry out research of a medical nature.
Could you let us know if you think this would be a worthwhile project or if you have any other ideas or suggestions?
We are looking forward to collaborate with you and hope one of you will answer us soon.
Thank you very much
Warm regards,
Maartje van Eeden
Linda Nijhof
Lieke Olijslagers
Charlotte Crooijmans
To Linda, Maartje, Lieke and Charlotte,
Thank you very much all of you for taking the initiative to identify with the problems facing children in Kenya. I am very interested in any kind of activity or support that will help children go to school and stay there, improve living standards, empower them to be able to grow into responsible and self reliant adults and above all safeguard their rights. You are free to choose a task that interests you and helps uplift the living standards of children.
I am interested in what you intend to do and any other you would want to do and i believe with such small beginnings we can in the end ange the world in ways that are beyond our wildest imaginations.
Feel most welcome to Kabondo and the project and i look forward to working with you very closely for thye benefit of our disadvantaged children.
Once again thank you for choosing Kabondo as your project.
Eric Ochanji
Local Representative
Dear Eric Ochanji,
Thank you for your reaction on our message and giving us a hearty welcome to Kabondo. We are glad that you agree with our plans. At the moment, we are looking for a more specific task that could help the people who live in Kabondo. We have to keep in mind that it is necessary that we can finish our task in the next six and half months we are working on this project. We are intent upon thinking about a proper task currently and we will come up with more suggestions soon.
Warm regards,
Maartje van Eeden
Linda Nijhof
Lieke Olijslagers
Charlotte Crooijmans
Hi Everyone,
Glad to have you here. You mention an interest in water and medically related areas. Here are some specific tasks for that as well as some others that are not related to these.
1. Water and sanitation - develop materials for teaching water and sanitation such as posters and so forth. We do have a bunch of these already from CAWST (www.cawst.org). There is also research that could be done into filtration and purification methods - again we have quite a bit of information from CAWST already, particularly on the biosand filter. There is also a discussion in the Water and Sanitation group on Nabuur here that may be of help.
2. Malaria prevention and treatment - again research this and develop materials for use. There has been a game developed through VIP for use in other projects...
3. Deworming - A literature review on best practices and review of costs associated with running a deworming program and informatoin projects operating in Kenya that work on this. Worms are one of the biggest causes of illness and easily prevented by filtration of water and also by inexpensive treatments.
4. Research and compile information relating to avocado growth and production and possible ways of extracting - we already have a good start on this, but there is always more information to gather as well as summarize all that has been done so far and possible options for the future. A report from another group in the Netherlands has already been compiled on this - but not specific to Kenya.
5. Research into possible uses of sweet potatoes - this was mentioned by the community. They wondered if there were any things that could be done with sweet potatoes beyond selling for cash crops. One person mentioned starch - but no other research has been done on that.
6. Develop marketing materials for Kabondo - this could include a newsletter template, brochure and more content for the website. It could also include a video or slide show. I have many photos and maybe Eric could gather more footage? This has been something that has been on and off for a while and it would be good to finish up. The only piece partially completed so far has been the website - but much more content
is needed.
These are just a few areas. There are a number of other areas that could be examined if these are not of interest.
Regards,
Barb Briggs
Dear Neighbours, Eric Ochanji & Barb Briggs,
We are Karin Pijnappels (18 years old) and Kim van de Loo (17 years old) and we attend Gymnasium Beekvliet in Sint Michielsgestel, in the south of the Netherlands. We can spend 80 hours on a project for Kabondo in the next 5,5 months. Our school is working with Nabuur on this assignment but is also working for some other Nabuur villages.
We read a lot of information about Kabondo and your project and we were inspired by what we read. We are interested in helping the orphans of Kabondo, we think they should attend school and learn the basics about useful stuff like hygiene but also about other things. We would like to do something to help because we hope it will have practical benefits for the people in Kabondo and we also think this is a good opportunity to have direct contact with the people in Kenya.
We’d especially like to inform the children of Kabondo about HIV/AIDS, how to prevent it and how to deal with it. We’d like to help you as good as possible. We also thought of ways to reach the children, maybe you have any suggestions?
We hope this collaboration will be useful for Kabondo, we are looking forward to this project and hope to hear of you soon!
Thank you very much,
Karin Pijnappels and Kim van de Loo.
Dear Neighbours, Eric Ochanji and Barb Briggs,
a few weeks ago we posted a message in this project room.
We had the idea that we could help the orphans in Kabondo to set up a school-gardening programm.
We are going to the same school as Linda, Lieke, Maartje and Charlotte and we read the message that you send to them with some tasks from different areas. We talked with them and we thought it was a good idea that we process the following task in our project:
5. Research into possible uses of sweet potatoes - this was mentioned by the community. They wondered if there were any things that could be done with sweet potatoes beyond selling for cash crops. One person mentioned starch - but no other research has been done on that.
What do you think of this idea?
We had contact with Ken Hargesheimer and he send us a list with things the people in Kabondo could cultivate: Maize, tomatoes, okra, squash, watermelon, cantelope, beans, peas, endamame soybeans [very high in protein], spaghetti squash [they can grow spaghetti].
If you have any recomments or ideas about our task, please feel welcome to share them with us. We would appreciate your opinion. We are curious how you feel about our ideas.
Warm regards,
Loes Beukers and Petrie v/d Zanden
Hi Barb,
Thank you very much for giving us ideas that could help us with our project. We are especially interested in deworming and research into water and sanitation.
We want to acquire information about the causes of the worm-infections, the consequences and possible methods that can prevent or dispute these worm-infections. Subsequently we can compare these methods and choose the best one. It could also be interesting to expend our project by research that could be done into filtration and purification methods.
Before we start with our research, we would like to know what kind of worms causes the biggest problems in Kabondo so we can base our research on these worms. Can you help us with that?
We’ll keep you posted with our developments.
Kind regards,
Maartje van Eeden
Lieke Olijslagers
Linda Nijhof
Charlotte Crooijmans
Hello Everyone!
I can help out in any way you need. Eric will be the best place to start to find out information on the types of worms that most commonly affect the children in Kabondo.
As for filtration, one of the best sources is CAWST (Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology). If you visit the group on Nabuur called Water and Sanitation, you can get copies of manuals and reports regarding filtration and various methods. They are listed under the drinking water section. There are also copies of posters and other information throughout the postings in the group. I hope you refer to them, as they are very good. Eric has also received some basic training on the biosand filter this past July, which is effective in removing worms, however the application is for use at the household level.
Let me know what further information you require!
Best of luck and looking forward to working with you!
Barb Briggs
Online Facilitator
Hello Loes and Petrie,
Good to have you here! Welcome to Kabondo. We are glad that you would like to work on this.
Regarding this task, the best place to start would be with Eric. He can give you more information on the specifics of sweet potato production in Kabondo. Ken is a great source too. He has lots of information. I think it would be good to find out about the nutritional value of sweet potato, compare the available varieties, compare growing methods, etc., and also look into what can be done with sweet potato that will add more value, meaning the ability to sell the product for a higher price (and would be in demand). This may mean looking into alternative uses of sweet potato, as mentioned, starch.
As I said, Eric will be the best person to start with.
Once you have decided on what you wish to pursue, would you like me to open a specific task on the topic to discuss with the other neighbours and to keep things in one place?
Regards,
Barb
Dear All neigbhours,
Thank you for this warm discussion.
This group is also doing great; to take commitment is not a little thing! Thank you for this.
I would like to inform you that In Buterere Community, we have started to discuss on such topics too. Simply copy or click on the link and see. Furthermore, cooperation between Kabondo and Burundi/Buterere can be a great idea?
http://www.nabuur.com/fr/village/buterere/project/task/make-a-list-organ...
Local Representative of Buterere Community
Jean-Claude KAMWENUBUSA
Hello Barb,
We have thought about what we wanted to pursue and we have decided to mix a few points of you with some of our own ideas. We want to do research after the following ideas of you:
- nutritional value of sweet potato
- compare the available varieties
- compare growing methods
- what can be done with sweet potato that will add more value (meaning the ability to sell the product
for a higher price)
And as we said earlier, we would like to mix them with our own ideas about school gardening which we have published earlier.
It would be nice if you want to open a specific task on the topic.
Regards,
Loes and Petrie