There is More to a Campus than Students, or How Not to Close a Campus

In March, the Kenya Ministry of Education announced that all schools, public and private, must close and the students return home. There was hope at the time that the students might be able to return to campus in September, but in July the Minister announced that the students were to remain at home and not return to their schools until January 2021.

“I can assure you that the Jane Adeny School is a home away from home. It is the best place to be.” – M., Class of 2022

Getting the students safely to their homes is only part of what the COVID-19 crisis has required. The Jane Adeny Memorial School has a large campus with computers, library books, science laboratory equipment, kitchen facilities, beds, desks, and everything that it takes to operate a residential secondary school. These facilities need to be kept in good order and safe from vandalism during a long closure. JAMS students may be away from campus, but the faculty and staff have continued to be employed to maintain the productivity and safety of the campus. It is important that the facilities be ready for use when the students are able to return in January.

A unique aspect of the Jane Adeny Memorial School is its entrepreneurial activity. JAMS has a dairy, a piggery, a large flock of chickens, and sheep, who need tending. JAMS also has a greenhouse, gardens, and a maize field, and it grows and prepares much of its animal feed.

“We have the dairy and greenhouse in which whatever we are taught in class concerning them we do and see practically.” – J., Class of 2021

JAMS has kept staff on salary to tend the grounds and fields and take care of the animals. All these enterprises provide vegetables, corn, milk, eggs, and meat for the students when they are in residence; their absence has allowed JAMS to sell the unused food at inexpensive prices or to give it away to those most in need.

JAMS strives to be a model for the community of good educational practices and also of self-sufficiency through agriculture and animal husbandry. The COVID-19 crisis has presented an opportunity for JAMS to provide much needed support to its community, from keeping people employed to providing food for the local residents who are not able to do their usual work because of closures and layoffs. This outreach and generosity to the surrounding community instills loyalty in the residents, who become part of the protective shield for the school, its students and its campus, out of gratitude for how JAMS has changed their lives.

WANT TO HELP?

Please send supportive messages to the JAMS students, teachers, and support staff by posting to the JAMS Facebook page HERE. Or send your brief message (a few sentences) of encouragement to Friends@JAMSKenya.org. We will forward your messages to JAMS.

Please donate to the JAMS COVID-19 Emergency Fund.

Learn more about how JAMS continues to teach our girls until Kenyan schools open again in January 2021 HERE.

Asante sana! Thank you!