Minutes:
TRUSTS FOR AFRICAN
SCHOOLS
MINUTES OF MEETING OF
TRUSTEES ON THURSDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2018 AT FLADGATE 16 GREAT QUEEN STREET.
Present: Norma Empringham, Guy Cowley, Luke Morris, Douglas Pinto, Gill Marshall-Andrews
Apologies: Lissa Campbell, Will Jones, Tom Marshall-Andrews,
Johnnie Morris, Ben Taylor, Steve
James, Ben Howland
1. Minutes
of meeting on 5 July 2018 were agreed.
2. Schools update:
SK’s update was
discussed. Since his last report in July
there have been several notable developments.
One is the establishment of a kitchen garden at Mitamysi
which is being tended by the girl borders using water they have used for
washing clothes and dishes. This water
is currently being collected from a borehole some distance away but when the
dam project with African Sand Dam Foundation takes effect there will be much
more scope for planting trees and growing vegetables.
El Rar still faces challenges of high illiteracy levels
in the community and ‘very retrogressive cultural practices which don’t encourage
education especially girl-child education.’
However there is good news about the appointment of a young woman as the new Assistant Chief who
may be able to begin to shift these attitudes.
3. Safeguarding
children
Trustees have discussed this issue and Norma has offered
to review our current policy on the website and develop a new sample policy for
schools to adopt. The matter will be
discussed further at the next trustees’ meeting.
4. Funding
Funding has been slow this year but there are hopes that
several applications and offers will come good.
Journeys by Design is putting together a safari for
auction at the Property Race Day 2019 and Luke is pursuing some leads.
We discussed raising funds in Kenya and agreed that Gill
will write an introductory letter and put together the text and pictures for a
leaflet to be given to possible corporate donors. Luke offered to ask Sam (his wife) to design
the leaflet.
It was agreed that companies could put their names on
buildings they funded.
Douglas will meet Stephen in Nairobi in the next few
weeks to prepare the Karui accounts and he has very kindly agreed to find
someone to audit them.
5. Proposals for funding
Projects to the value of £10,488 were agreed.
Further projects to the value of £89k have been agreed in
principle with money to be sent as funding allows.
6. Second hand laptop for Stephen.
Gill has found a second hand laptop for Stephen. Ben H’s very generous offer to send him £250
to buy one in Kenya will be put on hold until we see if the second hand one is
OK.
7. Next meeting
Many thanks to Luke for the wonderful meeting room and refreshments
at Fladgate.
Ben T has
offered to host the next meeting on Monday 7 January 2019.
