NGO pulls school from rubble to hand it lifeline

By Andanje Wakhungu(Education News Kenya — https://educationnews.co.ke/news/ngo-pulls-school-from-rubble-to-hand-it-lifeline)

If it had not been for the God-sent donors to come to the aid of Friends Manguliro Primary School in Malava Sub-county in 2018, the school could be no more following its poor performance and lack of proper infrastructure that made the community despise it and decline to enroll their children there.

But five years on, the school now is the talk of the sub-county after it rose from the ashes in academics, population and infrastructure, thanks to the organization ‘Reach To The Children’’s support from the United States.

The school head teacher Peter Ndunde Mwela is all smiles, reminiscing how he took over the little known school 8 years ago. With the help of the Board of Management chairman Samuel Tsimbwela, he has been able to transform it into a vibrant institution, with the community now supportive and willing to take their children there.

“I took over when the population was less than 200 after parents dissociated themselves with the school due to its inability to produce results. The new BoM Chair had foreign connections and together we decided to revamp the school. Today we are here to celebrate our achievements,” he said.

He added that in those bleak days, they could hardly produce a candidate with 250 marks. Things have completely turned around and in 2021, they managed to take 12 candidates to county and extra-county schools, having performed well for the first time since inception.

The school population has also grown to over 550 and still growing with the parents and teachers working together now to ensure education programmes run smoothly.

Since we got our donors, we have been able to put up 3 modern classrooms plus16 toilets.

In 2018, the donor sponsored 5 learners to secondary school. Now 30 pupils will have their secondary school education fully paid for.

According to the BoM chairman, the scholarship, which commenced four years ago, has impacted well on the community as it has triggered a more fierce competition among the pupils, with the first ever pupil scoring an impressive 365 marks.