Minutes:
DRAFT
TRUSTS FOR AFRICAN
SCHOOLS
MINUTES OF MEETING OF
TRUSTEES ON TUESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2017 AT FLADGATE, 16 GREAT QUEEN STREET.
Present: Norma
Empringham, Guy Cowley, Luke Morris, Gill
Marshall-Andrews.
Apologies: Lissa
Campbell, Ben Howland, Will Jones, Steve James, Ben Taylor,
Tom Marshall-Andrews
1. Minutes
of meeting on 3 October 2016 were agreed.
2. Schools update:
Mitamysi - the
girls dormitory was opened in a ceremony with senior KWS officials and a ‘guard
of honour’ consisting of the whole school!
The girls were there with their mattresses and trunks ready to move in
straight away.
El Rar – the two
teachers were on voter registration duty off site so no meeting was held.
Boka – is the first school in the county to receive the
government laptops for standard one students.
The school has a new IT teachers – a young graduate – who is
enthusiastic about the project. He has a
laptop loaded with the whole of the Year 1 and 2 curriculum and a
projector. The teaching material is
projected onto the wall of the classroom.
The school is justifiably very excited and proud of
this. Also the library is looking much
better – cleaner and with lower shelving and more ordered books. The EU Drought Management project has funded
new tanks and gutters around the school.
The trees are thriving and the girls dormitory is full.
Asako – the headteacher was away on voter registration
business and there is a new deputy and chairman of the BOM. The school looked
unkempt and in a generally poor state.
Teachers have not been paying for their accommodation so the buildings
are not being maintained. The fence is
broken, the pipes from the KWS water tank are broken. The painting of the classrooms was in
progress in a very haphazard way. The
solar for the girls dormitory is in place.
A very disappointing visit.
Jarajara – lots of progress. A new dining hall nearly finished funded by
the Ministry of Education, a boys
dormitory finished funded by CDF, UNICEF
mattresses and bunk beds hopefully arriving next week. Trees struggling as the drought is severe but
students bring in water with donkeys from the river. This should change shortly as new piping is
being funded by the county government.
The proposed library is very exciting and hopefully
funding will come in for this soon.
Kaseluni - the
school very welcoming to me and KWS officials.
Dancing and poems. Proposals need
to be reworked as they asked for more desks than they needed,they had not mended the desks they have and asked for too many books given the lack of
storage and security. There is a new
chairman of BOM who seems good and who might be able to support the
headteacher.
Eburru Secondary School - This school has become very dysfunctional
since the arrival of the new headteacher in 2013. TAS and several other agencies have tried to
bring this to the attention of the Teachers Service Commission and the MP, but
nothing has been done and this year’s exam results are dire. Everyone will keep trying.
3. Finance
LUKE TO WRITE NOTE ABOUT NEW COMPANY IN NBO
4. Marathon – Joan
Dickie still intends to run in April and will seek further sponsorship.
5. Just a Drop –
Lissa had put Stephen in touch with a partner agency to investigate the
possibility of funding tanks and guttering in TAS supported schools.
6. Proposals for funding
Proposals to the value of £16k were discussed and agreed
for immediate funding. Further funds for
the library project at Jarajara (£15k)
and the classrooms project at Kaseluni (£14,5K) will be sent when they
arrive.
7. Next meeting
Many thanks to Luke for the meeting room and refreshments at
Fladgate.
The next meeting
will be in W/B 8 or 11 May. TBC.
