Tree to Class Health Project
Through our project, we are contributing to achieving MDG 2 to Achieve Universal Primary Education and MDG 4 Reduce Child Mortality.
Tree to Class Health project is a project that focuses on pupils/students who learn under a tree or out in the open due to lack of classrooms. The mission is to promote education and health in order to effect positive change in the community. The students who learn under the harsh conditions face a lot of challenges of even dropping out of school because they can not stand the strong weather conditions such as too much sunlight, rain and the strong winds. The health aspect comes in, in the construction of school pit latrines,installing hand washing stations and carrying out health,hygiene and sanitation workshops.
About You
About You
First Name
Emily
Last Name
Karechio
Facebook Profile
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Muthaa-Community-Development-Foundation/210453378976930
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Muthaa Community Development Foundation
Organization Website
Organization Country
Kenya, CO
Country where this project is creating social impact
Kenya
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Tree to Class Health Project
What change do you want to bring to the world?
Through our project, we are contributing to achieving MDG 2 to Achieve Universal Primary Education and MDG 4 Reduce Child Mortality.
Tree to Class Health project is a project that focuses on pupils/students who learn under a tree or out in the open due to lack of classrooms. The mission is to promote education and health in order to effect positive change in the community. The students who learn under the harsh conditions face a lot of challenges of even dropping out of school because they can not stand the strong weather conditions such as too much sunlight, rain and the strong winds. The health aspect comes in, in the construction of school pit latrines,installing hand washing stations and carrying out health,hygiene and sanitation workshops.
What are the primary activities of your project?
Construction of Classes
- With classes available through out the school season, pupils/students are able to attend classes without failure unlike the rainy seasons when they did not have classes most students would fail to report to school.
Training of Community Health trainers on Health, Hygiene and Sanitation
Installing Hand-washing stations
-On trainings, the Community Health Trainers are able to go round the community and train other community members. This has led to reduction of reported cases of diarrhea and other water borne diseases in the local dispensary.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
Tree to Class Health project addresses education and health issues. The project focuses on primary/elementary pupils who do not go to school or drop out school due to lack of classes and poor learning conditions. The pupils learn in under trees or in mud huts that do not have walls or even rooftops. The students do not even have latrines to use and hence they go to the open field for both their short and long calls. This has contributed to continuous water borne diseases in the community because the waste is carried into the river where the community fetches their domestic and household water.
Our project is innovative because we involve the community in construction, they contribute the labour hence making the project sustainable and the school community members i.e pupils, teachers and parents owns it.
Other organizations such are World Vision, Amref and the Constituency Development Fund are trying to solve this problem. As we all try to solve the problem our project tries to solve this problem differently by involving the community.Unlike the other organizations our project jointly build the classes, the pit latrines, install hand washing stations and carry out community health, hygiene and sanitation workshops.
Another innovative issue that we are working on is the idea of training the community parents on entrepreneurship skills and assist them develop innovative products that they would sell to the local community and the global market through the our organization's website.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
Kayafungo location, in Kaloleni Constituency, in Coast Province of Kenya, is home to 35,000 residents. Most of the people leave below a dollar a dday.Women and children walk up to 6 KM daily to collect water from water pans that harbor visible, living organisms. The community lacks knowledge and resources to boil or chemically treat the water before drinking; consequently many suffer from stomach problems and fatal waterborne diseases.
With this knowledge,our organization has been able to carry out the Health, Hygiene and Sanitation Workshops that were carried out in the Kayafungo Location. Trainings were carried out with 160 participants equally representing the four sub-locations. The graduates are now Community Health Trainers (CHTs) with an understanding of topics including water borne diseases, water treatment, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, sanitation and home latrine construction.
Attitude and behavioral changes are necessary for the Kayafungo Community to overcomes daily health obstacles.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
Emily Karechio is the Founder of Muthaa community Development Foundation and is also the founder of the project and also runs the project. The founder was inspired to start the project by seeing the interest in eduction on the school going children and seeing the poor conditions that they learn in.
What was most inspiring is the students/pupils zeal to excel in final exams which they would give them a pass to secondary schools. The same final exam they would sit for would be the same the children in developed parts of the country would sit for. Developed means children who have good classes, can read at night due to electricity connects in their area and even have enough teachers to teach them all the subjects and are few in the class. Unlike the community our project is, a teacher is overloaded with alot of subjects with over crowded class hence good teaching performance is low.
The founder feels that if we can contribute to education hence we will contribute to achieving MDG 2 of Universal Primary Education by 2015.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Through our project, we have been able to construct 4 classrooms, 2 in a primary school and a secondary school, constructed 14 pit latrines and installed hand washing stations in 9 primary schools and a communal latrine in the community market centre. Also we have been able to carry out workshops to 160 Community Health Trainers.
With the construction of classes, there has been high enrollment and pupils are no longer dropping out of school due to poor learning conditions. Success is measured with the number of students who are retained through out the academic year comparing with the previous years with out classes.
On the issue of health, the health hygiene and sanitation workshops and the construction of pit latrines have reduced the water borne diseases as reported to the local health clinic. The success is outlined on the number of reported cases in the local health clinic comparing with the previous years.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
1,001- 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
Being a project that main activity is to construct classes and latrines in primary schools, we will empower the community members with design skills that they will produce products that will be sold locally and internationally.
In the next three years we expect the revenue got will be enough to sustain the community members and will improve the learning environment for their kids by putting up libraries and computer laboratories in the schools.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Funds. We plan to go on with fund raising.
We plan to train community members on social entrepreneurship and how they would produce and sell products of economic benefit.
Tell us about your partnerships
On the project through our organization we have been in partnership with Think Impact (formerly known as Student Movement for Real change). Think Impact is the organization that did the fund raising and jointly did the implementation of the project.
The Kenyan Government through the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education has also been a partner with in the project in terms of giving directions and advice.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$10,001‐50,000
Explain your selections
Our project is supported by friends, families and individuals who volunteer their time and others volunteer their professional services.
On NGO's we have received grants of more than USD $ 12,362 from ThinkImpact Organization formerly known as Student Movement for Real Change.
National Government have given us support by giving us advice and directions on how to improve the project.
Customers have bought our products and this has enabled us be able to sustain the project.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
Within the next three years we plan to strengthen the project through;
Capacity building team building of the projects personnel
Empowering the project beneficiaries on technology
Challenges
Which barriers to employment does your innovation address?
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Underemployment
SECONDARY
Lack of skills/training
TERTIARY
Lack of efficiency
Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above.
We carry out training.
Are you trying to scale your organization or initiative?
If yes, please check up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Enhanced existing impact through addition of complementary services
SECONDARY
Influenced other organizations and institutions through the spread of best practices
TERTIARY
Grown geographic reach: Within host country
Please describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future.
Training the community members i.e the parents of the pupils that we construct classes on entrepreneurship skills and product design.
Do you collaborate with any of the following: (Check all that apply)
Government, Technology providers, NGOs/Nonprofits, Academia/universities.
If yes, how have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed?
On the Government collaboration, we have been able to move first in initial stage of selecting schools to work with hence working on the project outline.
On IT Technology providers, we have been able to have the project view by different and many people online.
On NGO, partnering with different organizations we haven able to raise the funds for the project.
On Academia/Universities, we work with students to help the community members come up with innovative design ideas of products that can be produced with locally available materials.
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| pupils_in_a_class.jpg | 101.68 KB |
| mud_latrine_3.jpg | 145.85 KB |
| constructed_latrine_3.jpg | 195.12 KB |
| complete_class_2.jpg | 184.55 KB |
| handwashing_station._3.jpg | 40.29 KB |
| emily_and_collegues.jpg | 88.54 KB |
| pupils_in_a_mud_class.jpg | 110.19 KB |
 | 105 weeks ago Emily Karechio said: Looking forward to your comments. about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
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| 105 weeks ago Emily Karechio updated this Competition Entry. |
| 106 weeks ago Emily Karechio updated this Competition Entry. |
| 106 weeks ago Emily Karechio updated this Competition Entry. |
| 106 weeks ago Emily Karechio updated this Competition Entry. |
| 106 weeks ago Emily Karechio submitted this idea. |
