Is a site where everyone can find information about Star Says Education Center, see photos and watch videos, monitor activities at the center and find contacts of the center.
FOCUS: POVERTY REDUCTION & INTER-CULTURAL EXCHANGE Affirmative action-Making a difference through volunteering MINIMUM PERIOD OF STAY: 3 MONTHS Participation fees for MTV program:
The participation fee is Euros 600 for 3 months which means 200 Euros per month. What does the Euro 200 participation fee entail?The Euro 200.00 participation fee paid to KVDA will cater for the volunteer’s overall placement at the project including return Airport transfers, administrative costs, project/community support, monitoring/evaluation and contingency KVDA has a memorandum of understanding with partners organizations at the local community and will submit some fees to cater for the volunteers stay and this is done in consultation with the host community. The volunteer is entitled to accommodation, meals, access to water for domestic use and will be empowered by the hosts to make good use of locally available resources to facilitate the placement. Volunteers should arrive in Nairobi preferably at the end of every month in order to ensure that they participate in the orientation meeting schedule to run from 1st -3rd of every month.
Among the reknowned centers is:
Star Rays Education Centre
Project Code: 2:25 Project Kind: Education institution General Focus:
-Teaching
-Organic farming methods for food security
-Income generating activities
-Water filtration Location: Situated in Lugari, Nangili, Western part of Kenya
For more information about this MTV project, click here.
Star rays education Center normally has Primary School classes starting from standard 1 to 8. Pupils have been attending school from home and back daily (day school). However, Star rays now has a new twist to its education programme in terms of preparation of candidates for National exams. Star rays Education Center has initialized a boarding program for standard 4 to 8 (upper primary school). This is a step into the brighter side despite the few boarding facilities that the school has.
Pupils will now be able to carry out their evening, night and morning preps more comfortably hence eliminating the albatross that has been round their neck for long-lack of paraffin or electricity to enhance their reading at night and early in the morning from their homes due to penury. This had derailed their academic performance that is now set to improve with the new dawn. The star rays community has also embraced the efficient study programme, parents have brought their children for enrollment to the boarding programme and many more are requested to bring their children. Still, the Education Center would like to appeal to anybody who has anything that he or she feels could help promote the situation at the school, even in just a small way, to donate it for the benefit of the institution and the whole Star rays Center community.
As I gazed at the youngsters at Star rays education Center play, dance round and round and sing, my eyes were attracted to a specific group of boys who were modeling cars and driving them around the compound. This struck my memory and pushed it back to my childhood days….the play…nice modeling of our dream houses…careers…lifestyle….cars… “Bring here that soil!” my mother would yell at me with a threatening gesture to belabor me with the cooking stick in her hand. I would remain adamant about remaining with the soil. She would then chase me around in a bid to snatch the mud and throw it away. Oooh…how obstinate a boy I was! I still have a vivid recollection of my behavior at the age of five. How I used to contend resolutely with thick pastes of mud, especially during rainy seasons when I would even sink to knee level on my way to get clay from our stream banks. I would then carry it home shrouded in yam leaves to preserve it for a modeling session that kept my fingers busy for the whole day. It was fun to see my friends and I use our saliva to soften the material and shape it into captivating imitations of vehicle, animals and houses. I had specifically specialized in bringing out miniature versions of vehicles that charmed everyone. I mould cars and used grass stems to attach tires and finally dried them in the sun to harden in readiness for play. We could simulate cars as we raced the toys in our verandah. Another challenge was balancing the heavy earth on stick-supported tires. One had to make several fitful attempts in order to be successful.
Even though I made some structures that resembled the typical appearance of an airplane, I was astonished to find out that they could not fly like the others I used to see in the air. Most of my friends could bring clay and request me to make cars for them. They brought guavas in return for the labor input. What dispirited us was that rain could raze our work to the ground at once but with time, we learnt to hide them under our beds whenever there were signs of rain.
A few years later, I graduated to assemblage of wire vehicles while in upper primary school. I used to pretend to be playing by the roadside but once it started getting dark, I would head for my target, telephone wires. My father would bring me worn out tubes whenever he replaced his bicycle’s. I used to cut them into smaller rubber bands which I used to tie the wires together. Bending the wires creatively, and covering them with carton boxes, I would end up with complete automobile prototypes with long protruding steering wheels and even head lights. My father supplied me with old cells, which I hammered to “restore” their power for a few more days. In two’s or three’s, I tied and wrapped them in a cylindrical hard paper to hold them together. Most of my friends who admired these wire cars would even convince me to exchange some of them for cakes…bread…
My reverie was cut short by a beautiful play by a few girls who formed a circle. One of them led a song in which she could sing
My millet….
Others answer: Millet!
Mary stand up…
Others answer: Millet!
Shake your shoulders
Others answer: Millet!
After this, the named girl would stand up and walk with her own unique strut along her own diameter of the circle to the other side where she could take over the singing. Speak of child play….this is a perfect one….do you remember yours? Can you compare it to that of this children at Star rays Education Center?
Star rays education center is a clearly outstanding community institution that serves a wide range of interests. It is a project that has lived up to its purpose since its inception in 2000 by Mr. Makechi William, a livestock extension officer with the ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development. Star rays is a formal school for Early Childhood Education(ECD) and Primary education, a learning center for farmers interested in improving their knowledge in farming, a community library and a church venue on Sundays.
The project is surrounded by impoverished villages around Nangili area in Likuyani Division of Lugari District, Western Province. The people around here, who crack their backs to earn a living from their small pieces of land that barely amount to an acre for each of them, are long time internally displaced persons, victims of tribal clashes that rocked parts of Turbo, Uasin Gishu and Bungoma Districts in 1992. This led to sub-division of the land to very tiny bits, conditions that galvanized their interests in better and more efficient methods of farming in a bid to achieve food security, good health and even generate income to allay the bane of their existence……poverty. As a corollary of the same environment, the education, dreams and aspirations of many youngsters, who had irrepressible quest for knowledge, just like their colleagues in the country, had been beclouded with hopelessness.
As a result, the establishment of Star rays Education Center was met with fervent enthusiasm by all as it revitalized the whole community and gave it a new dimension upon which to base their view. It even gave young children a chance to learn with the hope to pursue their dreams in future. Having been built around the themes of service to the community, the institution is flocked with farmers with a desire to benefit from a wide range of knowledge ranging from compost making to bee-keeping and marketing of farm produce. The training is also given a practical touch through video shows, PowerPoint slides and even live demonstrations in the center’s farm or successful neighbor’s projects.
During some scheduled periods of the year, work camps are organized at the venue to construct and repair roads, cleaning and sensitization projects. The venue receives volunteers from various parts of the world during such times and many others also come to do their research at the center as they voluntarily serve the local community too,
farmers learning
What muddies the water is that Star rays Education Center is fraught with numerous challenges. The children, though always bursting with energy and confidence, face a shortage of learning materials like books, furniture and other resources to boost their learning experience. Despite the fact that efforts have been made to collect various publications, books and hand-outs given during workshops and seminars that farmers and other officials attend, farmers still lack learning materials. The institution has also subscribed to a few local agricultural journals to countervail the shortage but still this does not solve the problem as you would find many farmers with dogged determination to learn struggling to read furled and wrinkled cut-outs of old newspaper articles that discuss related topics. Also, more rooms and halls are required to facilitate efficient service delivery at the multipurpose institution.
Still, Star rays Education Center has stood the test of time due to the strong pillars on which it stands. It has put all its problems on the back burner and by virtue of necessity, concentrated on the little it has to make something out of it. May Star rays live long to serve the community!
