Tuesday 6 December 2011

Last blog entry!

Dear Friends,

this will be the last post on this site, boing forward, please follow us on: http://blog.cbsm-kimilili.org/
Thank you so much for all your support throughout the past year. We look forward to 2012 with big plans to further improve the situation of our 250 CBSM School children.
Here is an update for you:


NEWS:
  • Introducing the Newsletter:
    Great news from CBSM Kimilili: We would like to introduce our bi-annual Newsletter informing you about the progress at CBSM. If you would like to get on the distribution list, please email us on info@cbsm-kimilili.org
  • Next trip to Kimilili / Kenya:Our second trip to Kimilili will take place end of December 2011. We are very excited about going back to see all our friends and we are pleased to announce that this time 6 keen volunteers will be joining us. A big thank you to Astrid Kühne, Ursula Kühne, Daniel Diederichs, Steve Hinske, Ulrike Richter and William Ellis for voluntarily supporting the work onsite.
    Our big goal is to start the building of a proper school made out of bricks and cement to replace the current mud structure. Come and follow our adventure on our blog: www.blog.cbsm-kimilili.org
  • CBSM Kimilili School on Google map:
    You can now see our school on google maps. Just go to www.google.ch/maps and type in “Kimilili Kenya” and once on the site: add “CBSM”.

MAJOR MILESTONES:

Nine months have passed since our first trip to Kimilili.
During the 4 weeks in Kenya, thanks to the huge support received from friends, family and colleagues, we have achieved much more than we could have imagined; bringing lasting improvements for the 250 kids at CBSM. However, this has only been the first step on the long journey and so much more needs to be done to further transform CBSM School into a sustainable, high-quality school.
Since our return in February 2010, major milestones have been reached enabling us to further support CBSM School even from afar.
    • Founded the trust CBSM Kimilili
      CBSM Kimilili was founded in July 2011 under the umbrella of the Rütli Foundation (Rütlistiftung). The Rütlistiftung is a foundation for relief projects of the Reichmuth & Co Bank in Luzern. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Rütli Foundation for supporting us with all our questions and requests. Their support has been fundamental to establish the right structure to further support CBSM Kimilili. Thank you very much!
    • Community Investment Partnership Deloitte
      Deloitte Consulting was looking for new Charity Partners to build up the Community Investment Programme in Switzerland. Due to the huge support from our colleagues, CBSM Kimilili got elected to become one of four official Charity Partners. Thank you to all of you, who supported us. We are grateful for this huge opportunity!
    • Food program – In answer to East African drought
      In response to the East African drought which led to rapid food-price inflation, a food program was temporarily set-up sustaining the provision of school lunches for the children at CBSM. These extra costs were covered by our generous friends and colleagues. Thank you!
    • Collecting donations at “Streetparade”
      On August 13th 2011 the famous “Streetparade” event took place in Zurich. Our team understood this as a great opportunity to ask people for donations for CBSM Kimilili. Lots of friends joined in who were willing to support the CBSM project. The overall response was very positive and we collected CHF 800. Thanks to all of our friends. It was a great and really fun event!
    • New volunteers joined the CBSM team
      We would like to take the opportunity to introduce new Team Members voluntarily supporting CBSM:
      Andreas Jordan already started to brighten up our days with encouraging emails while we were still in Kenya. After our return he voluntarily constructed a great homepage (www.cbsm-kimilili.org) which has already attracted more than 10’000 visitors during the first 5 months. Thank you very much Andy, without you we would not be where we are today!
      The homepage also brought us to the attention of Philipp Vater, who contacted us immediately wishing to support CBSM. Philipp is a certified Auditor and he is now responsible for the Financials of CBSM. He built up the accounting system for CBSM and ensures that the investment flows are properly documented. He furthermore supports all of our additional activities.
      Florian Brodmann is the newest member of the team. He is responsible for all marketing activities, broadening the awareness of CBSM. He also supports the organisation of events.
      A big thank you to our new joiners. All work performed for CBSM is totally on a voluntarily basis with no payments involved. It is time for a big thank you for supporting our 250 children in Kenya. Your contribution will provide many children a chance to improve their living conditions by building on a solid education! If you have an expertise which you would like to offer, please get in touch, we would love to hear from you!
    UPCOMING EVENTS:
    • 2nd Kimilili trip:
      We are going back to Kimilili in December 2011! This time, colleagues and friends are joining and we will be posting our adventures and achievements on our website: www.cbsm-kimilili.org. Come and follow us!
    • IT Collection:
      Due to the huge success last year and the great need in Kenya, we are starting our second IT collection campaign. If you have old laptops, digital cameras or cell phones that you don’t need anymore, put them back to good use and donate them to CBSM. These electronic devices are a great opportunity for our friends in Kimilili to improve on communication and make more people aware of their situation. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to support our campaign.
        Finally we just want to say THANK YOU! It is inspiring to see how many of you support a good cause!
        Best wishes, your CBSM Team Alex, Agnes, Andy, Florian & Philipp

      Monday 22 August 2011

      Training our CBSM Teachers

      Dear friends,

      two of our CBSM teachers are going through education to become professional teachers. Our friends in Kimilili have sent us two pictures that we would like to share with you:


      All teachers going through education
      Below a picture of our CBSM teachers Matrin and Calvin that are also going through the professional education:



      Matrine (right) and Calvin (left)

      Good luck to our friends going through the education!

      Alex & Agnes

      Wednesday 20 July 2011

      Additional investments

      Overview of main Investments required to build up CBSM:

      Feeding Program (2 yrs): 12'500 Euros
      Land (20 plots): 47'000 Euros
      Classrooms (10): 51'500 Euros
      TOTAL: 111'000 Euros

      More details on the individual investments below:

      Feeding program:

      Due to the enduring drought in Kenya, prices for food have been gone up to a level, where many schools cannot afford the feeding program anymore. The CBSM school is also affected, facing the severe challenge to lacking the financials to buy the daily food required for the children.

      As a short term remediation, some of the CBSM members offered to renounce part of their salaries to ensure the continuity of the school. However, given the low salaries of the members, this is not a sustainable solution.

      The daily costs to feed our 250 kids are as little as 26 Euros per day:

      Maize: 15.30 Euros
      Beans: 8.60 Euros
      Fat: 0.60 Euros
      Fire wood: 0.80 Euros
      Salt: 0.40 Euros
      Tomatoes & Onions: 0.40 Euros

      TOTAL: 26.10Euros per day / 520 Euros per month
         
      Experts estimate (please see here or here) no relieve till 2012. To secure the nutrition program for two years, additional 12'500 Euros are required.
      For the long-term solution, please see "Land".

      Land:

      Long term, additional land is required to cultivate own crops to feed the students over lunch. The option of the CBSM youth groups to take care of the fields and keep a small portion as gratitude needs to be further evaluated.
      There is plenty of land for sale available around the school. One additional plot of 100x50 feet (30x15 meters) of land is around 300'000 KSH (2'350 Euros). 20 additional pieces of land would provide a solid basis for feeding the kids. This equals a total investment of 47'000 Euros

      School building:

      To ensure long term sustainability, it is of vital importance to replace the temporary mud and wood structure with a permanent building made of bricks and cement. For one classroom, below costs are estimated:

      Substructures:   1'700 Euros
      Walling and Frame: 1'000 Euros
      Openings: 450 Euros
      Roofing: 1'050 Euros
      Finishes: 950 Euros

      TOTAL: 5'150 Euros per classroom
      Eight classrooms are required as well as an office and a recreation room for teachers. This would total an investment of around 51'500 Euros

      Kitchen:
      No investment details yet, but a kitchen is needed to prepare lunch for the kitchen

      If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
      Regards,
      Alex & Agnes

      Friday 15 July 2011

      Famine in Kenya

      Dear friends,

      Devastating news have reached us from Kenya.
      Due to the lack of rain over the last two years, famine has reached many countries in Africa, Kenya being one of the countries with the highest impact.

      Below is an article from the Guardian (28th June 2011) outlining the severe situation:

      "The worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, the United Nations has said.
      More than 10 million people are now affected in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and the situation is deteriorating, it said.

      "Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told a media briefing. "There is no likelihood of improvement until 2012".

      Food prices have risen substantially in the region, pushing many moderately poor households over the edge.
      A UN map of food security in the eastern Horn of Africa shows large swathes of central Kenya and Somalia in the emergency category, one phase before what the UN classifies as catastrophe/famine – the fifth and worst category.

      Child malnutrition rates in the worst affected areas are more than double the emergency threshold of 15 per cent and are expected to rise further. High mortality rates among children are also reported.
      Drought and fighting are driving ever greater numbers of Somalis from their homeland, with more than 20,000 arriving in Kenya in just the past two weeks, the UN refuge agency UNHCR said on Friday. It voiced alarm at the dramatic rise, noting the average monthly outflow had been about 10,000 so far this year."

      As we have been told by our CBSM members in Kimilili, our school is also affected as the daily lunches for the kids can't be afforded anymore. The cost for our 250 kids are 26 Euros per day (30 CHF) and are split as follows:

      MAIZE: 1950 KSH 
      BEANS: 1100 KSH 
      FAT: 80 KSH
      FIRE WOOD: 100 KSH
      SALT: 50 KSH
      TOMATOES AND ONIONS: 50 KSH

      TOTAL: 3'330 KSH equaling 600 CHF per month

      As a long term solution, we would like to buy enough additional land for local volunteers to grow crops and sustain themselves, but as long as the funding is not there yet, we need a mid-term solution.

      We are looking for volunteers to cover parts of the monthly costs so that our kids can be fed over lunch. For many of those kids, this will be the only meal they receive for the day.

      If you would like to support, please contact us or transfer your donations to the CBSM account. Please remember, 100% of your donations will go directly to the kids, all administrations costs or other costs are covered by us.

      If you have questions, please feel free to contact us.
      Thanks for your kind support,
      Alex & Agnes

      Monday 4 July 2011

      We have a homepage!!!

       
      Dear friends,

      great news from our Kimilili-adventure: we have a homepage!

      Infos on our organisation, the volunteering blog and pictures of 250 pairs of brown eyes on:

      www.cbsm-kimilili.org

      Thanks to Andy and Kai for building it voluntarily during night and weekend shifts! You've done an amazing job!

      To all others: Thanks for taking part: It eases the life of the Kimilili community. And it means the world to us!

      Thanks!
      Alex & Agnes

      Tuesday 22 February 2011

      To our friends and family

      Dear friends and family,

      we are back in the civilized life, enjoying flushing toilets, food and hot showers. We would like to provide you with an overview of the main results achieved during our stay. This was all possible due to the huge support received from you back home, so a big thank you to you!


      Toilets (teachers and students)
      Description: To meet the requirements of the ministry of health, we build toilets for the students and the teachers. It offers six doors for girls and 3 doors plus an urinal for the boys as well as two separated cabins for the teachers.
      Status: Teachers toilets completed including doors and lockers, students toilets are finalized with five cabins per sex ready to be used.
      Investment: 2000 Euros

      Fence
      Description: The school area was fenced to fulfill the requirement of the minister of education.
      Status: completed
      Investment: 400 Euro

      School books
      Description: We bought one sample of school books (student book and teachers guide) for every subject for every grade as reference for the teachers. In addition, exercise books to hand out to needy children were bought as well as additional books (e..g, dictionaries, reading books and HIV education books)Status: completed
      Investment: 500 Euro

      Additional class rooms and school desks
      Description: Two new temporary classrooms were built to split different grades that used to share the same facilities. Both classrooms were newly furnished with additional school benches and are now being used.
      Status: completed
      Investment: 1700 Euro 

      Roof for current school building
      Description
      : The roof of the old class rooms needed to be made waterproof by adding additional iron sheets on the roofing.
      Status: completed
      Investment: 50 Euro

      Gate
      Description: A gate has been built to increase the security of the school properties
      Status: completed
      Investment: 150 Euro

      Land purchase
      Description: Enough funding was raised to buy the remaining rented land equaling to 2.4 plots (1 plot being 100x50 feet). Total land belonging to CBSM equals 5 plots.
      Status: completed
      Investment: 3900 Euro

      Water access
      Description: Water access has been provided in form of a water tab to allow school members to wash and drink. 
      Status: completed
      Investment: 240 Euro

      School uniforms
      Description: School uniforms are mandatory for school kids in Kenya. We bought 24 uniforms to be handed out to children that can't afford buying their own.
      Status: completed
      Investment: 120 Euro

      Others
      Description: Kenyan economy very often works without recites. Around 1000 Euros were spent on little investments like labor (500 Euros), school equipment like cupboard and office desks (300 Euro), other little investments, like nails, tea, sand paper and others (200 Euro).
      Investment: 1000 Euro


      With your help we have achieved all of what was planned for 2011 and 2012. THANK YOU for your support to transform a hut into a proper school.

      We have further plans to improve the school, this includes:

      Permanent school buildings:
      Replace the mud school buildings with a proper permanent school facility using proper bricks and cement. Cost estimate around 30'000 Euro (including office)

      School kitchen:
      The school requires a school kitchen to cater for student lunches and snacks. Currently, the school cook (an elderly volunteer lady) cooks at home and brings the food to the school. A stove on the ground big enough to cater for 250 children could be as cheap as around 250 Euros, however, we would prefer to build a proper school kitchen with running water, brick walls and a non smoking oven. No cost estimates available yet.

      Continuity for Kimilili
      One of the main questions that we got after returning home was: "How is continuity ensured in Kimilili now that you are gone?"

      The answer is as simple as "CBSM members!" Already during our stay, some of the CBSM members were extremely helpful, motivated and trustworthy. To quote one of them that said: "The face of CBSM is undergoing a huge change and I'm proud to be part of it!".

      Some of the achievements since we were gone include:

      Head teacher:
      A new qualified head teacher was hired and introduced new processes and methodologies to improve the quality and standard of the school.

      Teachers' Training:
      The two teachers that will start teachers' training (ECD program) in April registered themselves and compiled a list of all requirements (e.g., school uniforms, school books and other materials)

      Account:
      As the current account is located in Nairobi with no branch in Kimilili, access to money is difficult. A new bank account is to be opened, however, as it is for an organisation, the process to open it is complex and time consuming. However, the process has been started and awaiting approval of the district head officer.  As you can see, the CBSM members did the handshaking and visitor books all on their own... :)

      Students’ toilets:
      When we had to leave Kimilili, the toilets were not finalized. The toilet builder run off and disappeared for several days. CBSM members hunted after him and convinced him ("including strong arguments like involving the police") to finalize the construction. Toilets are completed and being used.
       
      Thanks to our CBSM friends for your continuous support!
      
      To ensure that the progress made over the last weeks can be maintained, continuous funding is inevitable to cover the monthly costs occurred by the school. We would like to thank Matthias & Anita, Jürg & Rebecca, Kaspar & Julia, Andy, Wolf & Ursula to agree to cover parts of the monthly run rate.

      We miss Kimilili, the big smiles of our CBSM friends and the 250 big brown eyes. We will go back in December 2011, let us know if you want to join! The more hands, the better!

      If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, please feel free to contact us on:

      ALEX: Alfrick@deloitte.ch / 0041 76 544 34 11
      AGNES: Agnes.kuehne@gmx.de / 0041 76 232 31 85

      or just come and talk to us. We are sure you'll see the spark in our eyes when talking about Kimilili! :)

      All the best!
      Alex & Agnes

      Thursday 27 January 2011

      See you soon Kimilili!

      Dear friends and family,
      our last day in Kimilili is coming to an end! In 30 minutes we will be taking the bus back to Nairobi (12 hours drive, although we heart stories about busses beeing 4 hours delayed because they ran out of petrol 10 km before reaching the destination...)

      The last days have been very emotional. It is hard to go, we made friends and met new "family members". 
      But we agreed to come back next Christmas to see how the progress is going and to further support CBSM with their goal to become sustainable.

      When we arrived four weeks ago, we found a hut in the middle of a field. With your support, we managed to transform it in a proper school. We will write a final report within the next few day. 


       A few impressions from the last two days.
      The biggest supermaket (the selection is huuuuuuuge!)

      A real African by now!

      The chicken is ready to cook...
      Afternoon sports activities with the children (with new toilets in background)

      Making jewelry, even the boys enjoyed it!

      Of course the girls where happy, too!

      Children dancing for us to say "see you soon". New classroom in the background

      We had to dance as well!!:) The kids honestly were much better!

      The "real" Katja and Bruno! Finally I found them!

      A real good tasting last dinner in Kimilili. (Even if it doesn`t look that good!:)
      We spent the night out at "our" club!:) Had a little headache today!

      We decided to sleep outside underneath thousands of stars!

      Kenyan hairwash style:)

      Our "goodbye" presents from the teachers! (The one in love with Alex!) :)

      Tuesday 25 January 2011

      Monthly run rate

      Dear Friends
      Our days in Kimilili are counted and one of our last goals is to transform CBSM into a sustainable school. For this, we’ve developed a so called “run rate” indicating the costs occurring on a monthly basis. The below run rate reflects the changes planned but not yet implemented, (e.g., two new trained teachers) to meet the requirements of the ministry of education and to improve the professionalism of the school.
      This is our run rate:

      Teachers‘ salaries:
      Head teacher:                                                                         80 Euros         
      Deputy head teacher:                                                               70 Euros
      Trained Teacher (upper classes) à 60 Euros (2x):                     120 Euros
      Early Childhood Teachers (lower classes) à 50 Euros (2x):      100 Euros
                  Assistants (not trained or undergoing training) à 35 Euros (4x): 140 Euros
                  Cook and guard à 30 Euros (2x):                                             60 Euros
      Teachers’ lunch:                                                                                   40 Euros
      Students’ snack (required by ministry of education for lower classes):   25 Euros
      Stationary (chalk, books, pencils…)                                                    10 Euros
      Repair and Maintenance                                                                      5 Euros
      Water consumption                                                                             10 Euros
      Exams (need to be bought and photocopied)                                       15 Euros
      TOTAL:                                                                                            675 Euros

      The above numbers have been compiled and verified by us with the support and information from the head teacher, the ministry of education and the board members. We also reviewed the book keeping, also there is not a lot to review. There only income is school fees paid by those students who can afford it financially. Currently, around 50 students are paying 2 Euros per month. This leads to a total income of around 100 Euros per month!

      As you can easily see, the math doesn’t tally. Currently our teachers are all volunteering. As CBSM School is currently not able to pay teachers’ salaries, it is impossible to recruit and/or maintain trained teachers (Please note: donations on our account will continue to support CBSM School’s sustainability in the future. We managed to establish a trustworthy system to control use of donations. If you’d like more information, please let us know).

      There is more news regarding financials: we bought the first plot (not the whole land yet, but the part where the toilets are built on!). All settled with attorney and witnesses signing the contract in a dark back room. Felt a bit like in a mafia-movie…

      Today we also picked up the first 24 uniforms for needy kids. They are really neat and we had great fun:

      Sponsored by Marco

      Two school girls...
      Very big hug from Kimilili!!!
      Alex & Agnes

      Monday 24 January 2011

      Mud fight


      Dear friends,
      Thousand`s of unpublished comments requested pictures of the girls-mud fight. Here are today’s pictures:
      Candidate Two...


      Candidate One...








      Stamping the mud...
      Throwing the mud against the wall

      When we went for a lunch break, we were desperately longing for a shower. But the water was off again. The only option we had was to use the water tab outside the house to do at least a bit of cleaning:

      Back showing a clear sign of Alex' hand...

      Regarding the classrooms, the second layer of mud is completed and the doors and windows are installed. To finalize, we need to cement the floors and add a third layer of mud where required.
      The teacher`s toilets also have doors and are heavily and happily been used.

      In the morning we completed the fencing as well as the new gate.
      And finally our CBSM sign is up!


      New gate...


      In the afternoon we decided to mend some of the kids’ uniforms. Some of them were in really bad shape. Lucky enough, Alex is experienced so Agnes took over the part of sewing on the buttons…



      Board members jumping in to support our sewing session
      In the evening, after our IT lessons, we had the first round of interviews for trained teachers. As most of our current staff is not trained or only trained for lower classes, we agreed to add two already trained teachers for the upper classes and to train two of our current staff members. Those of you who read the story about our roommate might be alleviated to know that one of them will be Matrine (the other one being the guy in love with Alex). (Please note: no donated money will be used for the training. We decided to pay for it)

      The second round of interviews will be held tomorrow so hopefully we have a decision by tomorrow night.

      Today has been a long day so let’s call it a day! :)

      Lala salama,
      Alex & Agnes