Invitation to African Themed Evening fundraiser

We would like to invite all our supporters to the following fundraising event (please click to enlarge):

The evening promises good company, fun and laugher, and a nice atmosphere. For directions on how to get to The Priory School, which is kindly allowing us to hold the event in its Art Department, please visit www.priory.bromley.sch.uk or email joanne@elimufoundation.org.uk

The view from Nairobi: report from Elimu advisor Andy Cooper

Elimu advisor Andy Cooper has been in Kenya recently for his day job - and sent this reassuring report back to the trustees and to the headteachers of our UK schools on the current security situation there:

While in Kenya, I took the time to just have a look round Nairobi (and particularly places like the airport where our school trips will have to spend time) to look at the security measures in places. This was mainly just for reassurance - Elimu trips spend very little time in Nairobi.

Overall I have to say I was very impressed. The Kenyan government are aware of the potential adverse effects on tourism and travel and are being proactive. There are rigorous road blocks on the way to the airport, bags are scanned as you enter the terminal building and again as you go through security. You can't get anywhere near the airport without having had both you and everything you're traveling with checked.

I also took the opportunity to meet with the drivers we use for airport transfers. Again, I was very impressed. Sammy (the main man) and his team have actually added two new vehicles to their fleet of already well maintained cars. They're also well up to speed on the current political stand off in the north of Kenya. While they're quite keen to stress how safe Nairobi is they will also err on the side of caution if in doubt.

We all saw the recent Foreign Office warning about Nairobi but I can happily report that the Kenya I've seen over the past few months has been much as it always is; beautiful, vibrant, welcoming, hilarious, infuriating.

Andy

Networking off Fleet Street and a thoughtful interview with some very accomplished students!

Last week proved particularly enjoyable for Elimu with a successful networking event and a thought-provoking interview. It had quite a journalistic theme running through it as one of my lessons (in my other job as an English teacher at Charles Darwin School) was also focused on news media.

On Thursday, there was an evening reception celebrating Britain's 50 new radicals, and those on this year's long-list, including Elimu. The event was held at the NESTA offices (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts - an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative) near London's Fleet Street and attended by The Observer newspaper, its partner and associate.

Elimu trustee Helen, a former Observer staffer, came along too. It was lovely to meet individuals and organisations we wouldn't have known about otherwise that are doing some wonderful work in both the UK and elsewhere and with whom we hope to keep in-touch. They include a charity that works with schools in Tanzania. We also chatted to Observer editor John Mulholland who has said he would be interested in hearing more about Elimu.

The following morning, I called into The Priory for the second time in a mere few days! A lunchtime meeting earlier in the week with our Kenya-bound sixth formers was a chance for us to catch-up and to hear how well they are doing with their fundraising activities. They have been busy organising cake sales, bag packing days at Marks & Spencer and attracting sponsorship for our upcoming walk.

On Friday, I was there to be interviewed by representatives of Year 8 as part of a BBC school report project that they are involved in. The Priory's Year 8s have just started a unit of work all about Kenya so it was a very timely interview, too.

They were fantastically well-prepared and faultlessly polite. Danny led the way with some very thoughtful, mature questions while the boys took photographs. After they went away to type up their article under a strict deadline and like the journalists they could well be, their teacher, Mr Pollard, took me to see the rest of the team in the classroom that's currently doubling as a newsroom. They were getting ready to do some filming.

It was a pleasure to meet them all. I look forward to reading the finished article and wish them luck with the rest of the project - it culminates with a live news day on 15th March. Expect to see The Priory on the BBC news site http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/

With thanks to Danny, Scott and Co.,

Jo