“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” ― Malcolm X
For Rhino Cement education is one of the three pillars for the Foundation. They are currently funding two school projects Mbungoni Primary and Lukenya Girls Academy. This is in addition to scholarships that they have given to students both in High School and University.
“You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.” ― Brigham Young
Lukenya Girls Academy
Living in a community where most of the families are nomadic and travel great distances in search of pasture can be a problem to a child who wants to go to school. Moving around interferes with children’s school attendance and performance.
Lukenya Girls Center for Excellence in Athi River is a public school which caught Rhino Cement Foundation’s eye as it is the only girls’ public school in the area. They have undertaken to build a dormitory in the school for the girls so that girls who attend the school can be settled. With this dormitory in place, the foundation expects performance in the school to rise, student attendance to classes to improve, and in general provide a better learning facility for the girls.
This project begin this year and the dorm will have a capacity of 80 students.
Rhino Cement Foundation previously built a girls dormitory in a school in Kajiado, and because of the high impact on the community, they felt this project would be worth repeating elsewhere.
The head teacher from the school in Kajiado said
“Before we had a dorm we had a very low turnover of girls transcending to sec school. Because they were spending less time to study and also as the teacher said sometimes when they move from school to their homes, their homes are very far, so when they go home some of them are tired. So we have seen an improvement and I think the teacher will confirm of marks of girls, we have seen also a lot of girls going to sec schools”
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” ― Nelson Mandela
Mbungoni Primary
In May 2012 Rhino Cement Foundation entered a partnership with Mbungoni Primary school. Rhino Cement Foundation embarked on a project to repair all the school buildings and undertake any repairs or maintenance works that will be required with the period of the partnership agreement. In this agreement, RCF has undertaken to inject a sum of Ksh2 million every year, into the project, for a period of 7 years. This amounts to KSh 14 million Shillings.
This will go to the renovation of the class rooms, desks and any other equipment used in the school, It will construct new buildings for the students and the teachers, and it will buy land to develop a modern play ground/field which can be used by big football clubs, both locally and countrywide.
Many students have benefited from ARM scholarship at the High School and University level, both local and abroad. This partnership between ARM and the M’bungoni Primary School at Kambe is the beginning of ARM’s effort to fulfill set objectives in contributing to education within Kilifi County.
They will be working with Rabai School this year and others in Athi River. In the past, in the area, they have constructed classrooms in Timboni, Maereni, Mbararani Schools
The head teacher had this to say this about the project “This partnership is very important to this school. We now have brand new classrooms, our pupils’ attendance is higher, we have more children coming to school, and most importantly, we now have RCF supporting us, so we can go to them for help whenever we have a problem. They also have a scholarship program, and we know they will assist our bright students to go to secondary school through this. “
