Dear Neighbors and Friends!

I am very happy to inform you about a visit in Matopeni I have done -together with representants for an organization in Finland - in February. It was a great feeling to stay there and see with own eyes in real life the results of every steps and efforts we have done together with you. Of course it was Stephen who practically carried out the whole project and he did a fantastic job.

I try to give you a short summary of this visit. There are about 350 children in eleven classes (baby class, nursery class, pre-unit class and primary school classes 1-7. This year there isn't any class 8. The very first BCC children in class 8 have done their primary school end examinations in November 2009)

The children were very happy to meet us. Some of them had measles when we are there. The children who are included in the feeding program get food at school but many of them don't get any food when they are at home in the evening and nothing to eat during to weekends. Almost every second child at school is underfet. It is a very big problem.

Concerning our earlier steps here comes a summary:

1) Primary school classes 1-8 : all the classrooms have been completed and seem to work very well. But there are still more needs , like desks. Especially the elder children are sitting very cramped and uncomfortable in their desks. It must be hard for them to work and write in those small desks.

2) The kindergarten building has been completed. But there are also still more needs like desks.

3) The kitchen and the store are completed. The kitchen seems work very well, but the store is still empty, shelves are needed.

4) The rescue home is very good working. By the time we were there there were seven children at the rescue home. These are the very neediest children who had no where to stay. A care taker stays with the children all the time. A couple of children still can get a place there.

5) Form 1 for secondary school: a classroom for form 1 has been completed but still it is impossible to start form one class for BCC former class 8 candidates.Simply because the school needs enough text books for reading that is in the Kenyan syllabus.Also the school needs desks for the students and well equipped laboratories for Biology,Physics and Chemistry.Otherwise the Government may not allow BCC to operate the school and Stephen and the board of directors can be arrested due to that.

My heart is bleeding for these young people with excellent examination results from primary school! Of 8 former class 8 candidates only 3 could join a secondary school (thanks to their sponsors) but resting 5 children have nothing to do and just stay at home at - often not so good - guardians who might force them to do a lot of bad things. I saw one of them, a very serious but very desperate boy. There is no job for youth without further education and the boy's guardian has no money to let the boy join a secondary school. If we can't keep working on a secondary school will these fantastic young people go loosed and forced to choose a way of criminality.

After this visit at BCC and after meeting of some former class 8 candidates I feel very strongly that secondary education must be our next step we urgently need to work for.

I will reactive the step for secondary school I hope very much that you will stay with us also during that process.

There are still lots of other information to share with you (for ex. the vegetable garden and the water situation)but I will be back later with them.

I upload some pictures.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kind regards

Ildikó