What:
The Knowledge and Resource Center will serve as the very first library in Maai Mahiu and the surrounding 50 km, narrowing the development divide between rural and urban areas and opening new worlds of opportunity. The KRC will provide essential support to all of CTC’s educational programs: adult literacy, study buddy, computer classes, youth health education, and environmental education.
Over 80 percent of youth in Maai Mahiu do not attend school past the 8th grade. Only 49% of secondary school aged youth attends secondary school and most adults have completed an average of 7 years of schooling. High school curriculum focuses on rote memorization of traditional academic disciplines and has little relevance to employment. With high unemployment rates and an alarming number of female residents involved in the sex trade, youth of Maai Mahiu have little to inspire them to succeed. The average primary school in Kenya has 40 students per class; classrooms at Ngeya Primary School in Maai Mahiu have over 100 students per class. Less than 1% of students from Maai Mahiu are admitted to university.
The KRC will offer both a public library and Internet café, where computers are readily available to the community of Maai Mahiu, creating new opportunities for furthering education and increasing job skills that were absent before. By greatly expanding our capacity for tutoring, the KRC will enable us to target teaching to meet the needs of students.
We've recently received another grant from Softchoice Corporation and Developing World Connections and huge support from William Scoular (in honor of David Scoular) and Alice 'CuCu' Johnston. This will allow us to continue construction and finish the remainder of the KRC. Thank you to everyone that is making this dream come true.
Thanks to our friends at The Nobelity Project, we received over 2,500 book donations through their 1,000 Books for Hope campaign. The books are currently in our Kenya office, waiting to stock the library of the future KRC!
The construction of the center allows us to expand our educational programming significantly by increasing our physical capacity and technological resources.
- Full time staff and volunteers to run the center and all programs
- Mentors & tutors within our Study Buddy program for high school youth in 12 subjects
- Adult literacy classes through collaboration with the Kenyan Department of Adult Education
- Information Technology training classes and workshops on basic computer software
- Internet Literacy training to enable and guide access to online resources such as study materials and job postings
- Opportunities for cross cultural collaboration with peers in North America and around the world
- Kenya: Free Secondary Education Favours Wealthy Children
- Strengthening the Foundation of Education and Training in Kenya