After 15 years since co-founding Common River, a US-based NGO working in Ethiopia, my partner, Tsegaye, and myself, Donna, are closing the program and the K-5th grade school that we built there. In 2018, we moved to Kenya in search of a safe haven due to political unrest in Ethiopia. Now living in a remote Kenyan fishing village, we are unable to ignore the local community-run school, which desperately needs help.  Paying tuition for Shania, a wee 3-year-old,  I was saddened upon visiting her school.  Wanting to find her a different school, I realized that there isn't another school within miles.  Rather than change schools, I needed to change the state of her school. We aren't interested in starting another NGO and simply wish to improve the education for the 60 local kids who attend the makeshift school in our neighborhood.  

 

The school is in need of desks, textbooks, 3 teachers' salaries, mats, classroom, and student supplies. Although the tuition is low, very few families can afford to pay. And the little that is collected, far from covers the costs needed for basic education. Thirty-five Pre-K students sit on the floor and the fifteen 1st-3rd graders (15) are squeezed into a room with desks for only 9 students.

 

As nutrition has been the focus of my public health career, and from my Ethiopian school experience when school lunch is provided, not only does attendance improve dramatically, but academic performance does, too. Kids can't learn on an empty stomach and nutrition is important for brain development. Students walk home for lunch, often to a household with no food. They return to school hungry, after expending calories walking to and from their house. Recently, I started providing maize flour, beans, rice, and oil for school lunches. The food costs $ 10 per day or $ 200 per month to feed 56 students and 4 adults. The monthly recurring costs for lunch and teachers' salaries are $ 400. I would like to ask for assistance from friends and family to help improve the school in general and keep kids learning.