Primary School Expansion

Currently, the school has two classroom buildings (6 & 3 classes, total 9), an administrative building, a kitchen building, a rain catchment tank off the six classroom building, one teacher pit latrine, and three student pit latrines.

In February 2008, at the recommendation of the Usalama team, Mwikali's Gift wired $5000 to Mr. Jackson, School Committee Chairman, to renovate the six and three classroom buildings. With the funds, concrete floors were added to the classrooms (previously were compacted dirt), steel doors were added to each class, operable glass windows were installed, rotted roof trusses were replaced, the exterior of both buildings was stucco'd and painted, and an additional gutter was added to the six classroom building to contribute to the catchment tank.

In June 2008, our team performed an assessment of the school site and conditions. We used planning exercises to engage the school officials, performed architectural surveys of each existing building, performed a topographical survey of the entire school property, held many formal & informal interviews, and visited three local primary school's for comparison. While in the village, we also assisted Mwikali's Gift member Karen Brodsky as she assessed the state of the water project.

All this information was then taken back to New York, were it was digested thoroughly. After multiple meetings concerning master planning, we narrowed our ideas down to four site plans. We also compiled preliminary cost estimation, investigated construction scheduling/management/priorities, and designed preliminary buildings.

In November 2008, Dave and Preston went on a pre-implementation trip to the village. On site, they presented our ideas, and came to an agreement between the school/village and our team. They also performed some much needed follow-up on the water distribution system.

Currently, the team is busy designing all the buildings for the site, and eventually completing a total cost estimation for the project (and of course fundraising!). We'd like to begin construction as soon as possible, meaning our ambitious goal is late February/early March.

What we're planning on building:

- 2 classroom buildings of 3 classes each
- 1 new administrative building (deconstructing existing admin)
- renovating existing 3 & 6 classroom building roofs and rehabbing the rain catchment tank
- 5 student V.I.P. latrines with 2 stalls each
- 2 handwashing stations at latrines
- 1 teacher V.I.P. latrine
- 1 kitchen with food storage
- 1 new catchment tank at administrative building (planning drip-irrigation in shamba, as learning field)
- 1 new community center w/ V.I.P. latrines, a cooking area, cell phone charging station (PV), and organic composting bin.