The town of Olosho-Oibor is located 52km outside of Nairobi at the foot of the Ngong Hills on the edge of The Great Rift Valley. This is farther from the city than it may sound. A world of ill kept dirt roads is not so fast a thing as tarmac. It is a small and peaceful town, decidedly rural but facing modernization with the set up of a U.N.I.D.O. resource center across from the school. The town takes its name from the white leaves of the stubby brush that is abundant in the region, and the direct translation of the name means white plain.

            Olosho-Oibor Primary School was built in the 1970s with the aid of the Presbyterian Church. The school accepts children from 12 different villages in the surrounding area, and has an enrollment of 323 students: from early childcare to eighth year classes. Students walk to school sometimes at distances of up to ten kilometers. But in a country that has only had free primary education since 2003, and in a society where parents often try to keep their sons at home to tend the herds and keep their daughters to marry off for a dowry, these children can be counted lucky for the education that they receive.

The standardized system of free primary education that was implemented in 2003 is ideally supposed to provide the children with school books, paper, and lunches, but it is a sad reality that the transfer of the funds for these items from the government to the school is erratic and sometimes nonexistent. Paper is a precious resource, and this year the school did not receive funds for the children’s lunches, but it is not all a story of failure. Most students have school books for all of their subjects, and those who do not are generally able to share with a neighbor. This is a marked improvement on classes where one book for a subject was shared between all the students, as was commonplace before the systems implementation.

The school can still use whatever resources can be sent to it, and any form of donation, be it of supplies or money, is deeply appreciated.