YASHA HOPE CENTRE (Street Children Project)

Here Lydia is standing with Michael, Imann & Joseph - 3 kids from the JWHS Home for Street Kids, (Directed by Beverley Gilbert Stone - Expanding Opportunities) together with all their stuff to board at YASHA Mission Academy in Njoro, Kenya.

The kids had to do an ACE Assessment Test - although they are were between the ages of 9-11, they couldn't really read or write properly. We are excited to see how they will develop in YASHA :-)

Tree Planting Celebration - 7 April 2009

YASHA Learning Centre,
Lulukwet - TERET

When the new Satellite School in the forest closed for the 1st term, we decided to thank the Lord God for His mercies in a practical manner ... We decided to plant 2 trees as to celebrate the 2 classes that was birthed this year.

Because the current statistics in the forest show that only 10% of the children will ever proceed to Secondary Level, we felt the Lord pressed on our hearts to start a 2-year program where the kids can learn to speak, read and write English as that is the major obsticle. ACE has proven itself as a worthy tool in the Hand of God, so we've decided to use the ACE Pre-School as well as the ABC-program (Gr 1) and then send the kids back to the local primary school ... giving them such a fantastic head-start and love towards education.

At the beginning of the year these kids could not even speak Kiswahili, as their mother tonge is Kalenjin. Now - a mere 4 months along the line - the kids can understand the Bible and animal stories though they might still answer in Kalenjin, they can say all the pledges in English, they know the letter songs, they can recite Psalms 100 as well as a few other scripture verses. They also know all their colors in English as well as all the shapes ... What a privilege to witness such growth.

We normally take some YASHA Mission Academy Staff members with so that they can also feel part of this great project. This time we also decided to take our prefects with - they couldn't believe how these kids are just flourishing. All glory to our God!!

The kids had a small program ready to "show-off" their great progress.
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A few of the projects that the children have been doing this term.
They normally work in groups of 5.
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Here the kids are saying the pledge to the Christian Flag.
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On the left we have Veronica (the overseer) and Miss Emily (our secretary from YASHA Mission Academy) and on the right we have Teacher Esther (Supervisor of the Snr Learning Centre) and myself together with all our prefects.
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Here Br Wilson is making one of the holes.

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Singing and praising the Living Saviour ...
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The Team of Teret planting the one tree ...
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... and the Njoro Team planting the other tree.
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After the occasion we gave the children of Teret some merits ... juice, sweets and biscuits.
What a pleasure to serve them with God's love!!

YASHA SATELLITE SCHOOL - Grade 0, Starting Jan 2009

1st Meeting WITH THE Parents

Saturday, 10 Januay 2009

Veronica and I showing the parents some of the phonetics.
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Tr Fancy with some of the children that might join.

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Quite a number of parents turned up ...
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Serious preps to be done ...

Veronica Cherotich will be overseeing the progress in the forest. Here she is busy studying the Pre-School Bless Program.
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Wilco making the school in the forest a new blackboard.
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Silas - one of the voluntary workers who currently stays with us - helping to prepare the small phonetic cards.

YASHA SATELLITE SCHOOL IN TERET - Grade 0, Starting Jan 2009

GOOD NEWS !!!!

For the past couple of years we've witnessed how children in the forest are not capable of communicating in English. Yet the education, as well as all their exams, are presented in English. There are normally very few primary schools in the forest and ONLY 10% of the kids will move on to Secondary level. This is a sad state of affairs, don't you think?

Now, the Lord laid on our hearts to start this project in Teret first (because we're involved in quite a number of forest-locations) and to introduce Grade 0 to them next year, followed by Grade 1 in 2010. ACE provides a fantastic tool not only to reach this children with the gospel, but also to get them speaking English in no time. Once they've worked through the "Pre-School with Ace and Christi", we can take them through the "ABCs with Ace and Christi" where they will learn to read and write and then SEND THEM BACK to the LOCAL SCHOOL.

I might add that there is currently only one primary school in Teret with very few teachers. The average number of students per class are about 100. We simply cannot close our eyes and make as if we do not know ... We KNOW and we SEE and we need to ACT.

On Wednesday some leaders from Teret came to our school to learn more about the School of Tomorrow program. We had a very productive meeting with them and we're all very excited with this new development. Please pray with us, as this is again breaking new ground ... We know however that with God nothing is impossible.

This photo was taken in the Tiny Tiger (Gr 0) Learning Centre at YASHA Mission Academy.
Back f.l.t.r. : Anne Cheptoo (our Supervisor in Grade 0); Wilco & Lydia; Ps Richard and Veronica Cherotich.
Front f.l.t.r. : Nelson, Joyce, Wilson and Bernard.

We will immediately start training Veronica Cherotich in the Grade 0 program. She will then again go and train the teacher in the forest early January. Veronica already knows the Kalenjin language and has done the "Learning Centre Procedures" training at YASHA some times back.

Please let us know if you want to get involved in this exciting project.