The following is a news article that appeared in the July 6, 2014 edition of the Kenya Sunday Standard written by Joe Ombuor featuring a recent development on a Global Peace Foundation led project in Kenya.
An initiative has been launched in Nairobi and its environs to enable primary schools in poorer locations to generate income to finance basic needs while ensuring their pupils are nutritionally catered for.
Dubbed “Greenhouses for schools,” the initiative targets schools in urban slums and the poorer peri-urban areas. “Our aim is to uplift schools where parents find it a challenge to feed their children or provide them with basics such as recommended text books,” says Daniel Juma Omondi, the Executive Director of Global Peace Foundation (GPF) in Kenya that has partnered with UN Habitat to make the experiment a reality by lobbying both local and external donor support. The first four greenhouses to facilitate modern poultry farms for layers and broilers are already up and running at Ayany Primary School in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, and Kandeng’wa Primary School in Kikuyu Constituency, courtesy of Grand Korea Leisure Company Limited (GKL) that operates casinos in South Korea.
Inaugurating the tents stocked with 4,000-day-old chicks at the two schools over the weekend, GKL’s Senior Executive Vice President Lee Jae Kyong said his company had spent US$130,000 (Sh11.3 million) in the two schools that have a combined population of over 1,500. “My company devotes 20 percent of its income to the less advantaged at home and abroad. We are happy to be associated with the less fortunate in Kenyan schools and hope to spread our hand of assistance to other parts of the country,” he said.
He described the tents constructed with Korean technology as among the latest in the market for fast maturity of poultry at minimum input. “I hope these two projects will serve as stepping stones into a brighter economic future for the schools, their pupils and surrounding communities,” said Mr Kyong. Apart from the tents and the day old chicks, the company presented 150 best performing students in the two schools with solar hand lanterns, writing materials and art equipment. Each of the schools also received 40 footballs. The community surrounding Ayany Primary School in Kibera further benefited from the installation of 28 solar powered streetlights to improve security, 20 of them in the crime prone Kibera market area. Markandey Rai of the UN Habitat exhorted other international companies to emulate Grand Korea Leisure Company and strive to improve the lot of young people who comprise 55 percent of the Kenyan population.
