Our Concept

Hands Up Because

• Kids raise their hands to be seen and to be heard
• Kids are the future. If we want to end poverty we have to educate them
• We raise our hands to directly improve the education in the Lamu Archipelago

Our Vision

To give primary schoolchildren the tools to contribute towards ending poverty and sustaining a healthy environment.

We aim to do this through

1. Ensuring that all primary schoolchildren have access to clean water and sanitation and an environment conducive for holistic growth
2. Provide in-school training courses to help children to cope with stress and restore their natural smiles
3. Provide primary schools with internet connection, to enable them to develop valuable partnerships outside their environment and attain a more global approach

Our Approach

We want to give school-children choices, so that they can find their own way out of poverty. To make choices they need the correct tools. Therefore, we provide the tools that they will need, so that they can have the best chances possible of finishing their primary education and look forwards to a brighter future.

The Millennium Development Goals and Us

The Stand Up Campaign brings to the forefront the implementation of the 8 Millennium Development Goals that 189 governments signed up to in 2000.

These goals are:

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
3. Promote Gender Equality & Empower Women
4. Reduce Child Mortality
5. Improve Maternal Health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
8. Create Global Partnerships For Development

Our Project focuses on

MDG#2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

“Around the world, at total of 114 million children do not get even a basic education and 584 million women are illiterate” (Art of Living 2009)

Our overall objective is to support the existing Primary Schools in the Lamu Archipelago. Within these communities, often the school is the ONLY institution to function as any kind of community centre, and the only opportunity children have to interact outside their immediate families.
After visiting the schools, talking to teachers, families and the children themselves, they identified the main problems as a lack of facilities and the means to communicate with the outside world.
Children in these communities love to go to school, and the teachers are committed to teaching them, often under difficult conditions. In many cases families do not want their children to come to school as they feel the kids should be working on the farms, and yet the kids themselves want to come as they see that an education is a way out of their poverty. By improving these conditions, we believe we can make a substantial contribution towards the education of children.

MDG#3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

Many girls, once they reach the age of puberty, either take a few days off school each month or drop out of school altogether, because they cannot afford sanitary pads. This greatly affects their education and puts them at an added disadvantage. By providing pads to girls we make it possible for them to continue to go to school without any loss of dignity.

MDG#7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

Water supply is one of the main issues within the Lamu Archipelago, especially on the outlying islands, where the only source of water is the rainwater that is collected during the rainy season. This year the rains came late, and then too much, meaning that many crops failed completely. Children here learn from a very early age that if there is no farming, then there is no food, and that to conserve water makes the difference between eating or starving. Most schools here teach environmental awareness and have as part of their curriculum a small farming project, but they lack the facilities to grow food for schools as they do not have sufficient water. Many children go all day with nothing to eat or drink when they are at school as there is no collection of water. This in turn affects their education as they cannot concentrate if they are hungry.

By providing water tanks and the means to collect rainwater, children will not only have access to drinking water during the time they are at school, but also be able to grow food to eat.

MDG#8: Global Partnership for Development

1. The Art of Living All Round Training in Excellence (ART Excel) Course: Children everywhere have problems and stresses, and it is easy to forget the emotional problems they suffer when we are concerned only with the physical. The ART Excel Course addresses these problems in a unique way, by enhancing their life skills through play [read more]. We will train teachers and children alike so that they can learn how better to deal with situations and become valuable members of society.

1. Some of the kids have never used a computer, and most of them have never used the internet. This is beginning to change as other NGOs have begun to provide second-hand computers to schools in the area. We would like to capitalize on this by taking it a step further and provide each school with internet facilities. This will give them the opportunity to make links and communicate with other kids outside their immediate environment, so that they are able to learn about the outside world, expand their horizons, and make choices about their future.

What We Do

Results

• Enhanced provision of clean water through rainwater harvesting
• Enhanced sanitation for both boys and girls
• Formation of school clubs
• Increased awareness and respect for each other, for the environment which will contribute to * strengthening society
• Access to the Internet within school for children, enabling them to make contact with the world and form networks with other schools in different areas

Timeframe

4 months for 3 schools for initial pilot project