In October, our trustees, Peter and Diana Stephenson travelled to Kenya to visit our two schools – Ol Moti Primary School and Lenkisem Secondary School.

The charity has raised a significant amount of money since our last trustee visit in 2015 which resulted in us carrying out some significant infrastructure and building improvements at both schools.

Peter and Diana, who took their daughter, Meredith, on this visit, were accompanied by David Manoa and Phoebe Odhiango from our charity partners, Born Free Kenya during the trip.

As a charity we feel that it is really important to visit the schools personally. This gives us the opportunity to find out how things are going and have really constructive discussions about what support the schools need in the short, medium and long term.

We meet with the school headteachers, members of staff and their boards of governors and also parents. It goes without saying that the highlight is always seeing the children!

Both schools mentioned that they would like a library/study space that pupils could use after school for homework and revision. We were also made aware that the schools would find it useful to have a few computers that the pupils could use and that they were happy for these to be located in the library.

In addition, the team at Lenkisem outlined the improvements they could make to the school and to the children’s lives if the school had its own borehole for the collection of water. The school currently shares the local community’s borehole and this is far from ideal.

This would take a major investment but we have agreed to cost this, as well as the other items on the schools’ wishlists.

On returning to Nairobi, Peter and Diana met with Tim Oloo, Country Manager of Born Free Kenya.

Speaking about the visit, Peter said, “It was an absolute pleasure to be back in Kenya. We were honoured to represent our fellow trustees at both schools.

“We are proud to have longstanding relationships with both of these schools and they are so grateful for our continuing support.

“A huge thank you to Manoa and Phoebe from Born Free who made us feel very welcome and offer us tremendous support on the ground in Kenya – we could not achieve what we do without them.”