This week we received the second progress report from the Chepkorio Vocational Training Centre. Moreover, the project was visited last month by our treasurer, Paul Sutmuller.

In the Chepkorio Vocational Training Centre in Kenya, underprivileged young people from the rural community in the region are trained as mason, carpenter, electrician, welder, metal worker, car mechanic, tailor and / or hairdresser. The centre has about 240 students. To improve the quality and capacity of education, the Chepkorio Vocational Training Centre wanted to replace and expand its school furniture. Not by procuring them, but by having them fabricated by the students as a learning assignment. A (much cheaper!) approach that testifies of the centre’s entrepreneurial spirit and inventiveness!
Thanks to financial support from AFAS Foundation, tools and materials could be purchased in December ’17 and January ’18. With this, the students themselves, under supervision guidance of the teachers, fabricated the school desks. From a technical point of view, the project was thereby completed.

In the first week of July, the vocational training centre in Chepkorio was visited by Paul Sutmuller, our treasurer, and the official completion of the project took place. The project was evaluated in the presence of the head of the Education Department and head of the Public Works Department of the Elgeyo-Marakwet County, as well as the entire school board. The representatives of the county, the school board, the teachers and all students were clearly very happy, not only with the assignment (fabricating school furniture themselves) but also with the result (adequate school furniture for all students of the school).

The official closure of the project took place in a meeting of the school board, after which the transfer of the school furniture took place with the cutting of a ribbon and …. the planting of an AFAS Foundation – Van Doorn Foundation tree on the school grounds! The day was festively concluded with music, dance and multiple speeches.

Read more about this project!