Maintaining school links with Kenya
TWO Sligo schools are maintaining links with counterparts in Kenya despite the difficulty of the pandemic.
Gaelscoil Chnoc na Ré has a well-established link with Tumu Tumu Primary School and raises funds to support the maintenance and development of this rural school in Central Kenya.
Mercy College established a link in 2018 with Tumu Tumu High School and during a 2019 cultural school exchange, established a fundraising commitment to Tumu Tumu School for Children with Hearing Impairment.
Fundraising activities planned for 2020 initially took a setback due to coronavirus but thanks to the determination and collaboration of both schools, they have come up with a novel idea of continuing to raise money during lockdown to support both Tumu Tumu Schools and Kisiju Mission School in rural Tanzania.
Dara Gallagher, Fióna Gallagher, Colette O’Hagan and Mícheál Ó Broin have established a new fundraising site for the three East African Schools.
Dara first worked as a doctor in Tumu Tumu Hospital in the Kenyan Central Highlands in 1992, and has maintained close links with Tumu Tumu ever since, travelling there regularly.
Her sister Fióna has been travelling to Tumu Tumu since 1995.
Dara and Mícheál, the Principal of Gaelscoil Chnoc na Ré, established a link with Tumu Tumu Primary School in 2016, and fundraising in the past, through the parent body
CAIRDE, has enabled the building of a school kitchen.
In 2018 Dara, Fióna and Colette, Principal of Mercy College Sligo, established a link between Mercy College and Tumu Tumu School for the Hearing Impaired.
This is a special residential school for Deaf Children, some of whom also have developmental difficulties. Colette, Dara and Fióna, together with 15 Mercy College Students and teacher Katie Kelly, visited the school in 2019 providing much needed funding for food and water access.
Colette and Mercy College also have a long-established link with Kisiju Mission School in Tanzania and fundraise for much needed basic equipment and supplies.
Central Kenya, as well as having to contend with COVID-19, has been hit very badly in the past month by heavy monsoon rain.
Tumu Tumu School for the Deaf, saw their pit latrines and other buildings collapse into the ground and are urgently in need of new toilets.
They are also in need of food and funds to build a well. Tumu Tumu Primary School hopes to complete a kitchen and dining hall that the Gaelscoil has previously supported.
Kisiju School is in urgent need of basic equipment and school supplies.
The fundraiser “We Will Walk 500 miles” started on Monday 11 th of May and ends on Sunday 21 June.
Dara, Fióna, Colette, Katie, Carol Ni Chormaic, Martin & Jetty Gallagher together with Foireann Gaelscoil Chnoc na Ré, -Múinteoir Mícheál, Herta, Jade, Gráinne, Yvonne, Síle, Katriona, LauraAnn, Lynne, Dara, Liz, Sorcha, Donna, Brid agus Samantha, “will walk 500 miles (and maybe 500 more!)” for Tumu Tumu Primary Schools, Kenya and Kisiju School Tanzania.
The distances walked are logged and totalled every night and the website is updated with pictures from the walks or information about the sponsored schools and children.
For donations go to: www. ifundraise.ie/fundraiser/11385332_we-will-walk-500miles.html