First of February round-up of FDC news 

As ever, our year has started on a busy note. We have taken on seven new Form 1 students who have all now started at school. It is very difficult deciding who to support out of a wonderful and worthy group of candidates who present themselves at our door in late December to early January, hoping to be taken on. We wish this fortunate group all the best as they start out at secondary school. May they continue to work hard and make the most of every opportunity.

Our year ended in equally busy mode, with the Christmas party and prize-giving. Many thanks again to all who attended – committee members, visitors, sponsors, parents and students alike. Our huge thanks must also go to KPS who once again kindly donated food for the party.

Our guest speaker, Anthony Muriithi, was such an inspiration to all our students and had a captivated audience. Despite being disabled by polio at the age of two, he has not let this disability stand in his way. He managed to attend Alliance High School and then Nairobi University. Not only has he found a fulfilling and interesting job at Safaricom, where he is a Team Leader, he has also married, has a baby boy, and has set up and runs his own business together with his lovely wife. With great humour and honesty he mapped out the challenges of his life and the great pleasure he derives from it. His main message was that in order to succeed in life one has to first want success and then be consistently determined and hard working to achieve it. He also spoke about self-esteem and insisted on the benefits  of staying strong and believing in yourself through good and bad. His famous phrase is that “You cannot control what people say and think about you, but you have control on how to react. What is important is, what do you think about yourself?”

He also shared what he referred to as his ‘five power points’ to start each day:

1.      I am the best

2.      I am a winner

3.      God is always with me

4.      I can do it

5.      Today is my day.

Everyone left at the end of the day wiser, inspired and possibly a little humbled by his positive attitude to life.

The party was also the occasion to recognise our prize winners. Below we see Solomon Murithi receiving his prize from Pop Gunson as top Form Three student and next is Jackson Kanyua receiving the prize for top Form Two student:

Solomon receives his prize from Pop Gunson

Jackson receives his prize from Pop Gunson

Proud parents and guests enjoy food provided by KPS

The full list of prize winners is below:

Form 1-3 best academic prizes:

Form 1             Grace Wambui

Form 2             Jackson Kanyua

Form 3             Solomon Murithi

Top in class prize:

John Kibue

Effort and participation prize – Karen PCEA Church luncheon:

Emily Ngina

Chairman’s Prize:

Jane Wanjiku

We wish you all the best for 2018 and hope that you will enjoy following FDC throughout the year. Thanks for your continuing support and generousity.

Geoffrey Kimwandi Kageha

We are deeply saddened to announce that Geoffrey Kimwandi Kageha, one of our sponsored students whom we have supported through secondary school into university, has died in hospital on Friday 6^th May after complications further to a diagnosis of advanced Non Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Geoffrey, a diligent student and enthusiastic sportsman will be dearly missed by all whose lives were touched by him. We send our heart-felt condolences to his mother and siblings from the FDC family and our sister organization, Karen Street Children’s Trust.

Geoffrey had been pursuing a degree in maths and computer science at Machakos University.  It had been a dream of his to complete tertiary education and become the breadwinner for his family.  He was already helping to support a sister through her secondary education doing casual jobs whenever he had the time. That this hard-working and generous-spirited young man’s life has been cut short so tragically is a great loss to so many.

Visits and Volunteering - Part 1

This week has been one of visits and volunteering. Catherine, Louise and UK visitor, Kezia, spent a morning out and about in Nairobi visiting four students. Wilberforce, below, sat his KCSE last November and as part of the FDC programme agreement, is now giving back to the community, in a volunteering initiative which is compulsory for all FDC students. Without this voluntary work and the necessary KCSE grades, students will not be considered by FDC for sponsorship of their tertiary education. 

Wilberforce is volunteering at a primary school in Kawangare, which is 15km west of Nairobi City Centre. Below, we see the wonderful and thought provoking tour he gave us:

Above, we see Wilberforce with the headmaster of the primary school, which has been funded by a church group within Kawangare. He was full of praise for Wilberforce's enthusiasm and dedication - which was wonderful to hear. The Wikepedia description of Kawangare is as follows:

"Kawangare is a slum in Kenya with hundreds of thousands of residents, many of whom are children. Water supplied by the city authority is not available every day. Safe drinking water is expensive in Kawangare. Many children in the slum do not attend school. The population is ethnically diverse, and many persons are HIV-positive. Most people live there on less than $1 USD a day."

So these children are relatively lucky - they are being provided with an education up to Year 3 of secondary schooling - but as you can see, their facilities are incredibly basic and teachers have to work with the bare minimum - one text book per class if they are lucky, and the children share exercise books and the rare calculator.

But apparent to us all, was the total enthusiasm of both teachers and students alike - keen to teach and be taught! Well done, Wilberforce, for contributing your time and knowledge!

Thanks must also go to Robert, Wilberforce's old school friend, for enabling Wilberforce to work in Kawangare, by sharing his lodging with him, as pictured below: