Schools in Kenya have been closed since 15th March. All of the schools that the Mwezi Foundation supports are in rural locations and the students live in very poor conditions. We have been unable to communicate with the teachers but we assume that it is unlikely any significant home learning has taken place, due to a complete lack of resources in the homes.
The latest news is that a new timetable will be published in mid August with a view to getting schools back by September.
Usually Dorcas and Julia would spend their weeks visiting schools to distribute lights and collect any broken lights to take back to John in the workshop to fix.
They have instead used this time to catch up on all their admin and carry out research which will help us with fundraising and monitoring the use of our lights. We have reduced their working hours for now to offset the long hours that will be needed when schools reopen, but we have continued to pay full wages.
As soon as schools reopen, Dorcas and Julia will contact all teachers to carry out an audit of how many lights each school still has, and how many will need to be replaced. Just before lockdown they had visited about 10 new schools, which the directors have signed off on, so we will be expanding our schools programme past the 50 which we currently support.
The students will need to work every hour they can to catch up on missed classes, so we are keen to give out as many lights as possible, as quickly as possible, to enable them to do so.
We are using this time to apply for grants to enable us to meet the massive need there will be for solar lights to enable the students to study at night. Although disadvantaged in many ways, we hope to give the huge advantage of a Mwezi light to help our school students catch up with their more affluent peers, who have had access to home learning during this time.
