Max Griffiths

Well here we are, the end of my WOD year…

Just over a year ago I was sat in a room pitching my thoughts, ideas, aspirations to the WOD judging panel. The plans were ambitious, ranging from improving managerial practices to making plans for a new Centre.

At the time LivLife was a very small charity, just going through the final stages of charitable registration and with an annual income of only about £7,000. I was working one day and most evenings a week for LivLife on a voluntary basis whilst earning my keep with a part-time job at Cancer Research UK. We had one LivLife Centre, which had been open for a successful 4 years, but needed considerable work to improve the quality, variety and sustainability – something which needed a long-term in-country presence.

Over the past twelve months, aided by the significant number of wonderful volunteers who’ve come on board we’ve more than doubled our annual income, got the LivLife name out there, introduced an outreach programme to get to the poorest, a work experience programme to get students into employment, upped the quality of the management processes and begun a high-quality teacher-training course. We’ve managed to upgrade the computer room, draw up designs for a wind-powered generator, begun registration for our new tailoring course which will develop skills, help people set up their own businesses and create a sustainable income stream for future LivLife projects.

We’ve pushed forward so far as a charity that we are planning on building 5 new centres in the next 3 years, starting with our first Satellite Centre on Monday. Using more sustainable local building techniques, we are hoping to build this Centre, which will have an adult classroom, a kindergarten with classroom and play area, and two outdoor teaching areas for about £1,000. Using the same techniques we hope that when we build our next large Centre, of the same size as our current one, in about two years time, we’ll be able to do so for £2,000 – down from the £30,000 it cost us to build the current Centre using western materials – quite a phenomenal saving and quite a phenomenal price. If that’s the price of education, of giving hundreds of people the capabilities they need to live their life, you simply cannot justify not supporting it.

Were it not for the Vodafone Foundation we would not have made this significant progress and built the foundations for the success. A wonderful opportunity from a wonderful organisation. Were more corporates to take this approach to social responsibility, the World would be a much, much better place.

And what now for LivLife and for me? All LivLife’s current projects have sustainable funding and we’ll be seeking more funding to continue the expansion of our work. We now have the firm foundations and a proven working model of a LivLife Centre, in addition to the ability to build very low-cost new Centres in the future. We’re set up well. The only weak spot for us at the moment is a lack of funding to continue employing any non-local staff in the role I have been doing to oversee and develop projects and programmes, but I will continue to work on a voluntary basis until such a time as we find the funding.

The end of the year, the beginning of the future.

What a busy first few weeks back in Tanzania! Hopefully you’ve been following my tweets so are not too in the dark!

Let me give you an idea of what’s been going on…

A Family come to Outreach

The outreach programme we started has been hugely successful thanks, in no small part, to our local Maasai teacher, Alex, who has developed quite a following. This scheme helps us remove one of the biggest barriers to education for those living in poverty – that of a lack of time. All our outreach students live subsistence lifestyles relying on their herds of goat and cattle and their fields of maize. Each member of the family has a role to play from the age of about 5 – whether it is water collection, grazing goats, looking after children, building homes or cooking. I went down there a couple of weeks ago to see how it was getting on. I was delighted to see that we had 54 students cramming around the blackboard to learn. Whole families were turning up. It was wonderful to see such quick results. (see the two outreach photos – one mother with child in class, and one family making their way over to the class).

Mother and child at Outreach

We’re now considering how we can best build on this in our first strategy document – the options for which I have been preparing ahead of a LivLife trustee meeting next week.

We’re also due to start our vocational courses in the next 3 months so I’ve been looking into the different options as to how we can run these. We’re keen that we don’t just teach a skill and then leave them to it, we want to help them know how to access markets, have some business sense, a knowledge of how to treat customers and how to market their products. This is one of the areas I’m most excited about. Establishing these courses will make a huge difference to our service provision.

Between all this I’ve been overhauling the computer syllabus to update it, improve the quality and make it fit for purpose for the next five years and reviewing the salary structure of the Centre staff – a very difficult job. Nearly 80% of our expenditure is on staff – they get a decent local salary, but they all have quality above and beyond what we pay. It is a credit to them and the family atmosphere of the Centre that they are still there, believing that what we are doing is far more important than making a few extra shillings elsewhere.

Of course the big news in Africa over the past few weeks has been the World Cup that’s being going on a bit further South of the continent. The kids have been having a thoroughly great time in watching it, although were gutted to see England go out and in such controversial circumstances! So controversial that they wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek film of what really happened. We posted it on YouTube and Twitter and it went viral very quickly, with 12,000 views in 8 days including features on the Guardian Sport website and on the homepage of the Slovenian equivalent to BBC Sport. If you’ve missed it, take a look below…

It’s been a while since I last blogged. A 6-week foray into the nomadic depths of England has been quickly replaced with the sedentary African lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to.

My time in England was spent largely on trains and buses going from place to place, meeting to meeting, spare room to spare room. Bolton, Manchester, London, Sevenoaks, Baldock… But it was a successful 6 weeks which gave me the time to take stock of what we had achieved so far and what we would work on for the remainder of the year, with the backing of our trustees.

It seems like a good place now to just go over what we’ve achieved to date and what we’re going to build on until the end of the year:

We have been working on the LivLife Centre Model, looking at the core processes and core services that each Centre will offer. Up until now we have managed to do the following:

• The local board of trustees have received training on governance and are providing the in situ checks and balances on the day to day running of the Centre
• Research has been conducted in the local community to discover their needs and problems and a member of staff trained on how to conduct and analyse research.
• Our trial for a bulk SMS service using an internet dongle and the local phone networks hit a stumbling block when we weren’t able to send more than 5 text messages. We have now found an alternative web-based solution and are going to trial that in the coming weeks.
• The Manager of the Centre has undergone lengthy training and an in-depth operations manual (in future the bible for any LivLife Centre) has been drafted. This will be finished in the coming weeks.
• Initial discussions have begun into a large internal teacher training programme aided by senior teachers in the UK. This training is scheduled to being delivery in September.
• A detailed monitoring and evaluation framework for a LivLife Centre with a simple interface but a complex analysis has been designed and training given to all Centre staff on how to use it.
• The processes of examination and certification have been tightened, ensuring that there is more standardised marking across the board.
• Financial management has improved, with increased checks and balances and improved resource management ensuring that budgets are more regularly kept to and savings identified wherever possible.
• We have trained an outreach officer and introduced an outreach programme in order to provide access to education to those who could not get to it previously. This has been hugely successful and it is going to become a key part of our strategy.
• Training has been delivered to a new kindergarten teacher and plans have been drawn up to double the capacity of the kindergarten by introducing an afternoon session. This is all ready to go once funding is secured, which we hope to have achieved by the end of the month.
• Work has begun on improving the after-school club in order to more closely tie it in with schools so we can provide what schools don’t. Initial discussions with local primary schools have taken place.
• A work experience programme has been introduced for our graduates and a trial scheme is currently operating with 4 students in placements.
• Initial research have taken place about where to locate a second and third LivLife Centre
• In addition, we’ve increased our monthly givers by 35% and had a number of large donations.

In the coming 6 months we are looking to build on this work with the following:

• Introducing carpentry and tailoring vocational and income generation programmes
• Trial and roll out a SMS service
• Roll out the work experience programme further
• Build 2 – 4 satellite Centres as part of the outreach programme
• Design and deliver teacher training
• Introduce a source of renewable energy at the Centre
• Complete the expansion of the kindergarten
• Rewrite all syllabuses for adult courses, providing relevant materials to go with it
• Build and install a multi-use sports area
• Introduce a food security programme
• Introduce health workshops
• Identify the location for a second LivLife Centre and being preparations
• Increase the number of monthly givers and win some large grants for continued funding.

It’s going to busy. It’s going to be exciting.

Saturday was our most recent graduation day. As always, students gathered in to the classroom to receive their certificates. Nearly 200 students took the exams and over 100 more had had to postpone their studies so they could work on their farms when the rains came.

It’s always an excellent day filled with celebration and this time was particularly exciting as we offered students the opportunity to apply for one of 5 work experience placements (see the last blog).

But the thing that really stuck in my head from the day was what an excellent team of local staff we have running the Education Centre. The past three months have been hard work for them with hours of training to go with their daily teaching and management responsibilities. Yet they have excelled and shown very promising signs in their own development… Here’s a bit more about each of them:

Top row (left to right): Eva, Neema, Nai, Loishiye, Babu, Alex, Nyangusi. Bottom row (left to right): Sakaya, Naomi, Sophia, Daniel

Eva has been with us since she came to volunteer when we were building the Centre. Now our cleaner and soon-to-be cook for the kindergarten, Eva is a typical Maasai mother. She has 11 month old twins and her older children are dedicated users of the Centre. Eva embodies the family atmosphere that is such a strength of the Centre.

Neema is our highly talented kids teacher. She joined us as a student when the Centre opened in 2005, after her Mum, from whom we had bought all the timber for the Centre, had sent her to study and to help out. She soon started volunteering with kids, running impromptu lessons outside and in January 2006 we were able to offer her a role as administrator and kids teacher. Neema has never looked back and is now one of the best kids teachers in Northern Tanzania with a great future ahead of her.

Nai is our heavily pregnant manageress. Always smiling and joking, Nai has won the respect of all her staff, students and members of the community – no mean feat in a male-dominated society. She is incredibly intelligent with a thirst for learning and has developed at such a pace over the last three months that we have been able to implement more changes than we’d hope, safe in the knowledge that they will be managed effectively.

Loishiye, the Maasai in the suit, is our computer and French teacher. His teaching style is unorthodox and trying to train him to use syllabuses and better lesson plans has been difficult, but there is no arguing with his dedication, results and popularity amongst the student body. He’s very much the unpolished diamond and if we can improve his teaching techniques then we will have an excellent and much loved teacher.

Babu has been volunteering at the Centre for the past 6 months as an assistant in the English classes and when the kindergarten is expanded later this year, Babu is going to become our literacy teacher as Naomi moves over to the kids. Babu is a traditional Maasai, although quiet and unassuming and his continued commitment to gaining more experience and helping other students learn has made him an integral part of the Centre.

Alex is the shining example of the Centre. When he joined us he could not read and write. Now, having gone through our courses and been an assistant English teacher for 3 months along with Babu he is our Outreach Officer, going out teaching members of his community who cannot make it to the Centre. The more experience and confidence he gets, the more he learns and blossoms. His community have seen how education has helped Alex grow into this man and, in his outreach role, he has become a new and very influential leader of his community.

Nyangusi is our much-loved day security guard. He too has been with us since we built the Centre and he is perhaps the cleverest man I know who can’t read and write. I have a lot of respect for Nyangusi – he feels a real sense of ownership of the Centre and loves what it does, but he himself doesn’t want to learn the academic pursuits – he’s quite happy doing what he’s doing. His expertise is in the natural environment and his care of the trees has transformed the Centre from a barren and dusty patch of land into a haven for wildlife ranging from love birds to chameleons to frogs to snakes.

Sakaya also helped us with building the Centre and he has been our receptionist and handyman ever since. He’s a very smiley man with a penchant for tea which has earned him the nickname Mr Chai (tea in Swahili). He’ll do anything for anyone and puts in a lot of effort. In the past three months it has been really great to see him starting to show his true potential we hope that one day, with his energy and enthusiasm he’ll be able to take some of the kids lessons and become an excellent teacher.

Naomi, like Sakaya, Nyangusi and Eva, has been with us since the construction. Having been a cleaner and cook at the Centre, Naomi became our literacy teacher at the turn of the year and when the kindergarten expansion is complete, she will become the early years teacher there. A very intelligent, generous and kind-hearted lady, with three very clever children, Naomi is at the heart of the Centre and we look forward to seeing her flourish in her new role.

Sophia has been the kindergarten assistant for over a year now but it was only in the recent kindergarten training that she has really started to come of her shell. As a Maasai lady she knows the upbringing of most of the kids and can speak to them in their tribal language. We’re very excited about her potential and can see her playing a key role in the development of LivLife’s work in future years.

Daniel is a day security guard / cleaner. He’s a relatively new addition to the Centre family but as we start to give more responsibilities to Sakaya and Naomi, he is starting to fill some of the gaps left and, whilst he’s still learning, he is showing his worth.

I couldn’t be more proud of a team of 11, even if England were to win the World Cup. They’ve taken full ownership of the Centre, have seized the opportunity to help their community, have challenged and developed themselves and have done so all in the family atmosphere of the Centre. They are the epitome of the Centre and one of the reasons that this job is so enjoyable (and this blog post so long…).

Last time I blogged (many moons ago…) I heralded the start of a new era at the Centre – one of an outreach programme breaking down the barriers for those who can’t get to the Centre. Next week we hope to see a new programme starting at the other end of the spectrum – a work experience scheme to help students who’ve been through our courses find work. Initial research was done today and we’ve got five potential placements lined up in teaching, mechanics, community development, an energy company and at the national museum.

It fits in perfectly with the end of exams, which I’ve had my head stuck in for the past few weeks, hence the lack of blog activity. We have been doing exams since we opened in 2005 but we had identified it as a process which we need to look at in order to ensure that we have a consistently high standard every time. The success of LivLife Centres in getting people into the job market depends not only on our abilities to turn out good students, but also on our abilities to be able to assess who is a good student.

The staff here at the Centre have had it tough the past couple of weeks with numerous training sessions, hours going through exam questions, marking schemes coming out of their ears and me picking up the smallest of errors, even if it actually wasn’t an error but an interesting talking/learning point. They’ve done tremendously well and the students exam results look to have been the same with some superb performances from Maths, Reading & Writing and the Computer students.

We have graduation to look forward to on Saturday, and then another week before I return to the UK for a month’s meetings and fundraising. But before that we’ve quickly moved from marking week to review week and we’re busy implementing a new monitoring & evaluation process which will take data from all areas of the community and assess all parts of the Centre – including what we don’t yet do! It’s going to be a very powerful tool and, most importantly, will give the Centre staff the capabilities to develop the Centre the way their community needs it to.

Back in the cyber world we’ve launched our new donate page on Virgin Money Giving – http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/charities/livlife which gives a much easier way of supporting the work we are doing.

Another update to come next week along with photos from graduation…

Today heralded the start of a new era at the Centre. After two weeks research and a week’s preparation, our Outreach Officer, Alex, left the Centre this morning all packed up on his two-wheeled school for his first day teaching in the community.

The research we have been doing has produced some very exciting results. Of the 50 homes Alex visited, virtually all of them said they couldn’t get to the Centre because they didn’t have enough time in the day to travel there after they’d fetched water and firewood, looked after their cows and goats, and tended to their farms. Every single one of them said they wanted to learn though, and although today’s market means numbers for the first outreach lesson won’t be as high as our research suggests, by the end of the week we should have class sizes approaching 30 – well beyond our expectations for this limited trial. It just goes to show that there is a huge demand for education but we need to remove the barriers of inaccessibility.

Apart from the outreach, there’s been a million and one other things going on… The Operations Manual for how to run a LivLife Centre is developing and our management processes are improving on a daily basis as they are documented. Training on the examination process begins tomorrow with the monitoring and evaluation systems following after Easter. The kindergarten expansion is almost finalised thanks to help from Roxanne, the newest member of the LivLife team in Tanzania, with a (hopefully short) wait on funding the only thing to complete before a planned start in either May or June.

All this was punctuated by the slightly worrying appearance of an Egyptian Cobra in the library roof one Wednesday lunchtime. With a neurotoxic venom, one bite will kill if it is not treated quickly and we were all a little worried when the kindergarten finished just after we’d discovered it and the kids poured out towards the library before we quickly turned them around the other way. Our Maasai guard, Nyangusi, who seems phased by nothing, dealt with it in his own inimitable way by pounding the roof in the hope of scaring it out so one of the local snake-catchers could grab it. Although this was after I’d vetoed his idea to get perilously close to it by building a makeshift tower out of two tables and a wobbly chair. Thankfully the snake was immobilised before it could do any damage, and the library is back in use…

Hot on the heels of the successful Skype link-up, I’ve been showing round Rick this week, an old friend and outdoor pursuits teacher at Bolton School. The intention is to bring over a group of schoolchildren in 2011 to see what Africa is really like, how people live their lives over here and to help at our LivLife Centre(s). The highlight of the week was a return to the village whose water committee I am a member of where we sat under a tree and planned a 5 day hiking expedition over the hills and out to Oldoinyo Lengai, an active volcano and the Maasai Mountain of the Gods.

We’ve also had the company of Kitty and Dave this week, two long-term LivLife supporters and the builders of the playground at the Centre. They’ve been helping us put in a new sports pitch complete with nets on goalposts and everything. We had a short break on Friday afternoon to introduce the kids to the wonders of tug of war which culminated in an absolute trouncing of the Centre staff by a few dozen kids.

Our outreach trial has kicked off in full swing this week with great starting results. I’m working closely with Alex, a Maasai student, who is visiting the different Maasai homes around the area. The first two weeks is very much focussed on research – finding out what they think of education and the barriers to it. Of the 18 homes Alex visited, every one of them wanted him to return to teach them there as their workloads meant they didn’t have the time to walk the 30 minutes to the Centre. Another week of research and planning and that’s exactly what he’ll be doing. Really exciting stuff this – the need is there, the desire is there, and we’ve just found the way to bring it to them.

It’s an office day today (here’s my office below!), catching up on the various piles of paperwork that seem to have appeared and then into some hardcore documenting management processes later on this week. Hoping to get our work experience programme moving as well, which should help our students bridge the difficult gap between education and employment… I’ll keep you posted!

Got to love it when technology works and something you’ve worked very hard for is actually a spectacular success.

One of my aims of the year is to develop our schools linking programme with the intention that in future years a large percentage of our fundraising will come from schools. Bolton School, where both the LivLife co-founder Sam and I went to school, are the first school that we’re linking with and they’re being absolutely tremendous, trialling out various different ideas, raising money, and planning trips out to Tanzania.

Tuesday saw one of the most exciting aspects of our schools linking programme come to the fore – a Skype video and voice link between a UK geography class and a traditional Maasai home on the Maasai Steppe, a World first we think.

As part of the Year 9 geography curriculum, there is a section on the impact of tourism in the Developing World, particularly using the Maasai as an example. Bolton School Girls’ Division were keen to bring a bit of reality to an otherwise remote subject so with the help of a Vodafone internet dongle, the Tanzanian mobile phone networks and my trusty laptop rested on a bucket of water, we had Bolton girls asking Maasai Warriors and mothers how tourism had impacted their lives. It was tremendous fun and very moving in England and Tanzania with both the Maasai and the schoolgirls learning a lot about the different lifestyles, challenges, and the odd moment of hilarity – namely when they discovered a shared love of Coca-Cola.

Now that’s geography.

Sat down round the back of the Centre (see photo) typing my blog. I’ve got the sounds of the literacy class behind me, the computer teacher instructing on the use of Excel to my left, the chattering of the kids as they draw each other (although hopefully not on each other) to my right, the discussions of the English improvers class ahead of me and the rumbling of thunder in the distance. As they say over here, everything is continuing well.

It’s been a week of getting things moving. I’ve had my parents here volunteering for 5 days. Their vast business and trustee experience has been vital as they have sat down with the Centre manager, Nai, to deliver management training, and the board of trustees to help improve their local control and governance of the Centre. Both are absolutely crucial in establishing the roots of sustainability at a local level. My Dad has also been beavering away on a new business course which we hope to run in conjunction with the vocational courses we are introducing later in the year.

All I’ve done this week has been captured by Matt on camera. I started training up our outreach worker, Alex, which involves early mornings and a lot of walking before the day gets too hot. Alex has taken to the idea of research and teaching like a fish to water and we’ve had some very positive responses from the Maasai we have already talked to. This programme will help us reach the poorest and neediest.

……Whilst I write this a chorus of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” has just begun to my right… I think the kids have finished drawing…… In fact, on the kids, check out the characters in this photo taken by Matt Oldfield…

My Advanced Computer Class is continuing well and it’s becoming one of the most enjoyable aspects of my work here. The class are picking things up well and building in confidence and, having started the course later than the others, the class size is growing lesson by lesson. In addition we’ve identified an area for the sports pitch and hope to start work on that in a couple of weeks. Going not quite so well is the SMS trials as, for a reason known only to the gremlins inside my computer, the texts have stopped delivering to phones.

Five days half-holiday for me next week as I head to the Serengeti to take in the migration. Should give me time to catch up on all my reports in the evenings too!

It’s been a busy busy week… In fact Monday seems so long ago it feels like I’ve been back in Tanzania a month rather than a week.

We’ve made some good progress this week. I’ve talked through our ideas with the local manager of the Centre and got the unwavering go ahead (which was no surprise as many of the ideas had come from the community before Christmas) and have today just finished the first version of our project plan for 2010, which has an excitingly large number of stages.

I’ve found the technology to do our bulk SMS service in the form of a wireless Vodafone internet dongle. Trials are going to start in earnest in the next couple of weeks, but initial tests of the technology have been very promising. We hope that within three months we will be able to conduct all our course advertising through SMS which will cost us just 30p a month – 1% of what it costs us at the moment. Importantly we hope to use this system to then get important health information out to the community. I’ve been in discussions this week with the local clinic and Proctor and Gamble to plan the distribution of free water purification sachets to the community as part of our new health education programme. The access that this bulk SMS service will give us will save many lives.

I have started teaching the Advanced Computer class, an almost incidental part of my role here owing to people wanting it, there not being a local teacher able to teach it, and me having the knowledge to teach it. I’ve got a keen bunch of students who are beginning to learn about the power of the internet. Technology willing, we’re going to get a Skype webcam link going between UK classrooms and the Maasai – perfect for Year 9 geography about tourism!

Amidst all this I’ve had the pleasure of welcoming Matt, a freelance photographer working for Vodafone, to Meserani and showing him around the work LivLife does there. Matt has been very popular with the students and he’s already taken a few thousand superb shots which will no doubt be available online before too long.

We’re getting moving on the outreach project this week as well as looking into the management processes and business side of things (thanks to help from my parents who are coming to lend their extensive expertise to LivLife for 5 days). We’re also going to make a start on constructing a sports area – a hugely important part of any life.

The sad news this week was that the baby elephant passed away on Tuesday morning. He was just too weak after so many days on his own in the bush and the wound created by the snare had gone down to the bone. A real tragedy to lose such a marvellous creature in such a pointless way.

Arrived back in Tanzania on Friday morning and it’s been a busy first couple of days…

Got my tent up without too much trouble, although it’s failure to stand up to the afternoon thunderstorm left me with a soggy sleeping bag and the item “find new tent” added to my to-do-list.

It was good to see the Centre’s computer room full with practicing students when I arrived and the news that, because of the level of take-up of the classes, we need more chairs.

I’ve got the weekend to settle in and prepare now (have just moved into our new office – a circular hut with a reed roof!) before getting down to the work in earnest on Monday, starting with the obligatory first week of meetings with staff, students and the community.

One of the great things about Africa is that you never know what’s going to happen. Whilst I’m working out here, I’m camping at Meserani Snake Park, which runs the local clinic. The owners, Ma, BJ and Deon are renowned for doing a lot for the community. As we were sat at the bar on Friday evening, BJ had a phone call from the Wildlife Service saying a baby elephant had been caught in a snare and could we help. An hour later BJ and a team of American volunteer medics were operating on the elephant whilst Deon and I frantically Googled to try and find out whether we had any drugs that would tranquillise a baby elephant! BJ and the medics did an excellent job and little junior was bandaged up and has been eating happily since.

As I write this the rain is starting to come down again, so better go and check my tent!

Back to Tanzania on Thursday after 6 weeks in the UK. Can’t wait.

Managed to make some excellent progress in the past month and a half – have written our strategy and had it approved by the trustees, worked with a couple of volunteers to raise a grand at a racenight, inducted our new trustees, established an exciting school link that will hopefully fund the construction of another LivLife Centre and various bits and bobs essential for setting up a charity (we’ve only been registered since September so there’s things like insurance and gift aid to sort out). Also managed to fit in getting two bouts of flu… Obviously my ability to deal with the English weather has dimmed!

The next three months is where it gets exciting and we start seeing results on the ground. After the usual first week of meetings and greetings in Tanzania, we’re kicking off with improvements and developments. Our aim over the next few months is to firm up the LivLife Centre Model and then by the end of the year, establish another Centre.

Watch this space for news, videos and photos over the coming weeks…

Having spent my first 10 days in England building links with schools, doing a touch of fundraising, and wading through all the paperwork associated with being the first and only employee of a charity, I swapped the London Underground for the Tanzanian commute – a short walk past the cattle market, a few camels and a chorus of “hellos” from friendly children.

The focal point of our work is Meserani Education Centre, which I founded in September 2005. Our work has a huge emphasis on sustainability. In fact, if it’s not sustainable it’s not worth doing, and so we had designated this trip purely as a planning and fact-finding one.

I’d never talked to so many people in such a short space of time. Everyone had suggestions, everyone wanted to tell me of the progress they’d made, everyone wanted to tell me of the dreams they have. You can see some of this here.

I always enjoy news of how our work is helping. We have former students working in hotels, as teachers, in government offices, in factories making mosquito nets. More and more children are making it to secondary school and the kindergarten has become such a success we could fill a whole other class from the waiting list.

Perhaps most pleasing of all is the progress of Babu and Alex, two Maasai Warriors who couldn’t read and write when they started coming to the centre in 2005 and have been gaining work experience as Assistant English Teachers over the past 3 months.

Thanks to the World of Difference International programme we can now look at a significant increase in this benefit. It costs us £5 a month to give one person the education they need. Since becoming the first full-time employee of LivLife we’ve raised over £2,000.

Albeit just the start, this funding will be able to finance our new programmes in tailoring and carpentry, as well as double the capacity of the kindergarten. I’ve also re-jigged the budget to bring in a full-time literacy teacher, and I’ve got a list of project ideas from students of the Centre stretching over two sides of A4 to cost up.

It’s going to be a very busy 12 months, but one in which we will change lives.