Welfare and dignity
ACEF seeks to ensure that all those who attend Brainhouse Academy are afforded the basic rights all young people in the world should receive.
a secure and safe place to sleep,
nutritious food and safe drinking water,
a good education and vocational training,
a safe place to play,
positive social relationships.
School infrastructure
Education needs the right environment to thrive; we work with Brainhouse Academy to create a safe and welcoming place for children to learn.
In a slum where street defecation is common we have developed eco-toilets that provide dignity for all students as well as generating biogas for the school. We have installed water tanks and filters to provide essential access to water for the school.
Solar panels have been installed providing electricity that lights classrooms and dormitories. The library is stocked with a variety of donated books, including textbooks and storybooks.
Widening horizons
We encourage and celebrate the success of students exploring interests from sport, to drama, to music, to debating, to reading, to dance. These allow students to develop their confidence and self-belief.
We’ve created vocational programmes such as dress making, plumbing and solar engineering which we hope will provide an income when they graduate. We’ve also helped establish a Scouting group in the school to connect students with a worldwide community and teach a wide range of skills. These all help the students break the cycle of poverty.
Empowering girls
Girls in Kenys can face more barriers to a good education and lasting success. By introducing menstrual cups and education around periods and hygiene we can give our students dignity and keep them coming to class. Our vocational programmes, including sewing, are open to all but we consciously look to find successful female role models, in business and beyond, to inspire careers for girls in a variety of fields.
Success Stories
Welfare and Dignity
It is not unusual for children in the slum to go for several days without food and clean water. The severity of the poverty families experience means that eating every day is a luxury and scavenging for food is a necessity. Malnutrition leads to long-term health issues and children simply can’t concentrate to learn with an empty stomach.
A significant achievement of ACEF has been our feeding programme. We have provided just under one million meals in the last decade to support the essential feeding of our teachers and students.
Aggrey, Principal of Brainhouse, says, “Before the feeding programme by ACEF, there used to be frequent absenteeism by students. The presence of the feeding programme has eliminated dropout among the students. Most of the dropouts could not concentrate in school on an empty stomach. They had to walk out of school in order to concentrate by looking for what they could eat. Feeding has also improved the teaching and learning concentration of our teachers and students/pupils respectively. They are now performing better.”
School Infrastructure
The school and surrounding community have no sewage system and children use plastic bags, holes and buckets as their toilets. Illnesses such as typhoid and cholera which are associated with lack of hygiene, are commonplace
The leadership at Brainhouse Academy wanted to address this issue, whilst also seeking the means to convert the waste into energy. This idea was to use biogas in the kitchen to reduce the running costs of the school and to improve the overall cleanliness of the environment.
In 2018 ACEF went into partnership with the leadership team to develop 29 eco-toilets; providing students with the dignity of using hygienic toilets and enabling the school to benefit from the energy being created.
Aggrey, Principal of Brainhouse, tells us, “The new toilets have enhanced hygiene within our school thereby minimizing infectious diseases. Biogas produced by the toilets has reduced the cost of fuel. New toilets have reduced congestion by students during breaks.”
Widening Horizons
The cycle of poverty in the slums can be all-consuming and stifle the opportunity for generations to improve their lives, robbing young people of their ambition and hopes for the future. The Leadership team of Brainhouse and ACEF take Nelson Mandela’s words ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’ to heart and have set out to give the young students at Brainhouse the widest education experience we can achieve.
Over the decade of working together we have introduced our young people to new opportunities that challenge their minds and help them to grow and understand the world more.
We have developed a wonderful library, bringing the joy of reading for pleasure into their lives. Students have become part of the worldwide network of Scouts. Children have been on day trips to see the history of their country or to meet, for the first time, the wildlife of Kenya. Successful Kenyan’s have come to speak to the older students – enabling them to believe that they too can reach for the stars and have aspirations. We have run leadership programmes for the teachers widening their knowledge about pedagogy and introducing management and leadership skills.
Here are the words of our Head-Boy from 2017 who has been inspired to make a difference by the education and environment he experienced whilst at Brainhouse Academy. “You can be tempted to do something bad, like stealing, rape, drugs and this is what we are trying to eradicate. I want to live, I want to help change our society positively so that we can all one day be considered good people and have the same opportunity. In our Kenya we know we have one of the biggest rooms in the world but it is a room that needs improvement. I want to be part of the improvement, I want to make a difference. Maybe one day my children will have some history lesson about me, which would be amazing!’’
Empowering Girls
Period poverty is one of the most significant barriers to girls accessing education. Creating an environment where girls can feel safe, enjoy education, and feel empowered knowing that their wellbeing is taken care of is so important, not just for their futures but also for the future of their community.
Since 2017 ACEF has worked to empower almost 500 girls, their mothers and the teachers at Brainhouse Academy by providing menstrual cups, reusable menstrual pads and menstrual health training (delivered by a local trainer).
The difference this has made to the girls is remarkable, the Principal of Brainhouse tells us, “Before the introduction of this programme, girls had problems during their menstrual period. Poverty forced them to use dirty rags because they could not afford sanitary towels. Thanks to menstrual cups brought and introduced by ACEF - There are many benefits our school, teachers and girls have derived including: -
i) The presence of cups has kept our girls in school thereby reducing absenteeism
ii) Hygiene has been enhanced as the cups are more hygienic than the towels or the rags they were using.
iii) Bacterial infections due to unhygienic conditions of the sanitary towels or rags have been reduced.
iv) Menstrual Cups have eliminated cost of purchasing sanitary towels thereby improving living standards as the money saved can be used by the parents to buy food.
v) Teachers can now teach full classes and school academic performance has tremendously improved.”
The girls’ empowerment programme is making a tangible difference. It has an impact on the everyday lives of the students, their mothers and the teachers at Brainhouse Academy, along with a significant longer-term impact, breaking the cycle of period poverty and removing stigma.
There is no doubt that every penny raised to support our work at Brainhouse Academy makes a real difference.
“We want to say thank you so much to ACEF for what it is doing for our children. You and the volunteers are helping to save these children, because what happens outside here is terrible! Do you know the children you see here today, before you came, had to go out after class to look for their own food. They used very unadvisable methods, like the young girls they go out to do prostitution to get money, others just roamed the streets, the compost heaps, looking for food to eat! We had ten year olds who knew how to deal a gun. These are not small things, you know that a child knows how to pull a trigger, but you don’t know where he will pull the trigger. May be on you or me!! Thank you ACEF”. Aggrey Ottwa – Principal.
