The name of the Trust, Ribban, is derived from the combination of the first three letters of Ribot and Bandiat Primary Schools that educate over 500 children. Both schools are located in a remote farming community in the Rift Valley, Kenya. The government paid the teachers, provided that the parents built the schools. As the parents are poor, they constructed temporary mud buildings. Parents stopped maintaining the schools when free education was announced by the Government in 2001.
In 2006 the school buildings were uninhabitable. They had dirt floors, holes in the walls, leaking roofs and no windows and doors.
Two Years On
Ribban Children’s Trust in Scotland has already provided enough money to complete new classrooms for primary 1-8 in each school. Unfortunately the very youngest children (i.e. the ones in the Nursery School) are still in old rooms.
Even in the new classrooms, the children do not have a full curriculum or enough writing materials. Four children share one textbook on a homemade desk. Each school needs a new library and books. There is no staff room. There are no playgrounds nor sports equipment. All-weather roads, electricity and computers are a far away dream.
The children live in over-crowded huts and are assigned domestic chores that affect their school work. They start school at around 8 years. The majority walk around 6km
in bare feet to reach school and suffer from infections due to inadequate clothing in high altitude and the rainy seasons.
Despite these conditions, the children are motivated to learn and to achieve because they see education as a ticket out of rural poverty. The changes brought about by Ribban have already had an impact within the community. More children are attending school and showing more success in exams and the parents are becoming more involved in school matters. We are hoping to provide research which shows the exact impact of our project.
