Project 1: Tenderfoot

Project history

The Tenderfoot self help school was originally 8 street children being fed, clothed and taught in a corrugated iron shack in a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi. Thanks to the vision and hard work of Esther Wamai, it is now a fully functioning school that clothes, feeds and teaches approx 350 street children and orphans a day.

When we got there the school was only half built and there was only enough room and money to feed and teach 155 children. Since being involved we have built the rest of the primary school, acquired the neighbouring land, that is presently being used as sports/playing fields but may be used to extend the school in the future, provided various educational and sporting resources and set up a number of trust funds to support primarily the third of the children at the school who are orphans.

In June 2007 we created a formal contract that committed us to sending out 5, additional £12,000 installments and committed them to expanding the school, with an aim to support feed and teach more children in the community.

We only have two installments left to send and they will, as before only be sent out once we have received sufficient written evidence and images that shows exactly what the last £12,000 installment was spent on.

Our plans for the future are to always stay in regular communication with the school and staff, continue to help them financially or by whatever means necessary. To this ends we are keen on setting up relationships between English schools and our projects in Africa so that an enduring support network can be established.