Past the Enemy lines...

I, Francis and John made small notices alerting the community about the scandal that is going on at the 20acres. We had good intentions of informing the parents/gurdians not to admit their children to the built Secondary school at our property. The notice said that the matter is still in court and no parents should be cheated off their money by admitting their children to school. This we see as a means of trying to cone parents their money or, try and incite them to demostrate against us, when the matter turns against their wishes. While driving past the areas where they are building the school, John and I saw that they were having a meeting, with their lawyer, who apparently has never appeared in court or presented their paper tot he judge. This are the reasons why we think the case will be to our favour.

So John went ahead to distribute the notices, going past the enemy lines to the residence of our enemies. I mean the people who are really against us. He put the notices in their areas of residence. At 3Am in the morning, they came in numbers to John's home and demaded him to come out. Here is the funny part, they really believed that John had a rifle gun, but all John had was a sling-shot that he used to hit his gate and the guys ran, fleeing for their lives, thinking John had fired his gun!

(in the pictures are the complete builing that is supposed to be a secondary school, an students have already been adnitted to)

EDUCATION WITH A DIFFERENCE.

The year 2009 seems to be the beginning of a better learning institution for our students. The introduction of Science, Swahili and Social studies is going to make a wonderful blend with the other subjects that we initially had. This will ease the load that the students joining fast track usually have when they join as the classes that would have been introduced at the time when they start the program, will not be alien to them. Those who will leave Literacy classes and join rotation and skills program will also have more knowledge.

Irene Akinyi

Mits Technical School, Wood Shop and Tailoring.

With high hopes that we had the interviews of both the wood shop and the sewing shop, we had the interviews which started on the 12th to 19th and we had three ladies which showed up and they passed the interviews and we gave them the requirements needed for starters and they said that they will, the following week bring the fees required but unfortunately they did not show up.We decided to extend the intake until the end of January to see if we can have some more.
In the wood shop we have tried a lot to complete the furniture for the new cafeteria at the Connor Brown building. We have also worked on some display furniture for the display like the coffee table, tic tac toe, cutting board and a bunk bed. We are using the same room where we have the Mits School Uniform Shop.We are hoping for the outcome to see how it turns out to be, but im sure we are going to have a good bussiness as soon as it picks.
We have pending projects still for the cafeteria of which are; a shelf with 2 drawers and a formica top, we need to make two more.

(in the picture is Eunice who is the sales person at the shop)

Robin Ndunda
(Wood shop Supervisor)

Building Projects

John has managed to complete all the projects at hand. The mom's house which will be used to house the teenage mother who come to visit from Eastleigh; all that remains is painting and cementing the septic tank outside. The nursery school building is almost finished, last touches like plastering the inside and floor. The Conor Brown buiilding is complete and will be use as soon as electricity is installed and the property. All equipments have been purchased and installed in the building. Laurent and Elizabeth Mogambi, our newest team members, are really enthusiastic of their new jobs. They will work together to teach catering to the skills students who are interested in this field.

Skills and Exit students

Well with every new year, we have new students ready to move to the next level. This year we have new students looking for work, attachments, moving to skills and etc.
Those in College are:-
Anastasia Njoki and Susan Wambui have started college in Journalism and beauty course respectively.
Those who start their attachment( apprenticeship) this year are Patricia Wanjiru in Eastleigh Salon
Ken Wambugu, Joseph Wambua and Francis Wahome start their attachment in Auto mechanic for 6 month in Autoshops in Kayole.
Moses Kung'u is on attachment at MITS cafeteria for 3 months.
Mary Wanjiku and Tabitha Akinyi still looking for attachment, they have done catering.
Soon after the attachments, the students above will start the process of looking for jobs which will be a big task because the economy is not doing well.
Those who have gotten a job are;
Halima Nguvu started working in December 2008 at Narcisse Salon in the Sarit center
Stephen Omondi starts officially and starts being paid this month at the Four Wheelers Auto shop.

Joel Njue

Two Thousand and ' Mine'

This year classes in mits have started on a high note although we continue to witness and encounter things that are trying to bring this very young year to a bad start like the court hearing and the ongoing drought, but as moses puts it, we are still in high spirits because this year is TWO THOUSAND AND 'MINE'. God is always with us so we only need to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off.
We now have a new schedule in place for our literacy students that was started this month. New subjects, new classes and very soon new uniforms for our kids. I didn't know how the kids would take all these changes but from the first day, they have shown lots of enthusiasm in everything. We now have three classes, the fast track, literacy two and literacy one. I did not realize it but our kids are growing up very fast. Most of them are getting into our skills program after graduating from literacy program so we are having a smaller number in our literacy classes. The fast track class which comprises of our most advanced students in terms of education is preparing to do the government exam at the end of this year and we have a total of thirteen, a larger number than we had previously. The last group did us very proud and have set a new chapter for us. Every students in our classes are now learning seven subjects, Bible, Computers, Math, English, Science, Social Studies and Swahili, five of which are tested in the government exam. This way our kids can get quality education which will better equip them when they get to go out there to meet the world.
For the others, they are happy that they get to learn new things and are always holding books everywhere they go.
We pray that things will work well this year.

phillipo.

The uniform experience

Land issues aside, Jackton and his team are working round the clock to finish up the school uniforms. Late last year the team decided that the student will look much sharper and presentable in school attires. He should be finishing up real soon because the anticipation is so high. With this Francis said that a shopping trip is on order for the kids to have decent shoes to match the uniforms. That adds to the excitement.

Bill Smith and Bob Brannon would really be proud, because what they initiated while visiting us last year, concerning the Uniform Business is growing. Having in mind that our quality, price and location is convinient for our customers. We have sold so many and still selling as we recieve more orders through Victor who then forwards the order to Jackton's sewing plant.

(In the photos, Jackton and his team measure Joseph Mburu to know his size)

Do we still have Faith!

OK, on a low note but still in high spirits. The court hearing yesterday went not so well. Francis went in to get the Judges' verdict, but apparently the judge was not there...He was still on vacation or leave from last year the 17th of December. Francis tried to see if another Judge could take our case, or if the Judge who went on leave had left the case to another Judge dealing with land issues, but to his dissapointment, nothing of that nature had taken place. He approach the court clerk for some more advice but the clerk assured him that it was all upto to the Judge to make the ruling because he was with all our documents and evidence papers prooving the land was acquired in the right way. So if we were to give another Judge, the case would take longer still. Options are; we either write another letter invoking the Judge to put a restraining order because construction is still taking place on our land. They have had student intake at the beginning of this year, this week they put out an advertisiment in the local papers for employing teachers. Have in mind the building is not even finished and it already has pupils admmitted.

Appeal the case if it will not be in our favour, but accordiing to Francis the case is on our side because we have presented all documents proving that we have legal right to the land and the other side has not produced a single document to proove their grounds. Their strategy is that they have this going so that parents who have already admitted their kids to the school, put up a demostration against our bid.

We wait for next week, maybe the judge will remember that he has this case to deal with and he has to know that we as MITS community are not letting him off the hook that easy, he has a force to reckon with!

WHO CAN REALLY KNOW GOD'S MIND!

It is amazing for one to tell, what God’s will towards his people. Rich and the poor, agriculturist and non-agriculturist all asking the same questions, who might have wronged to cause this kind of phenomenon/famine. They mighty have not done anything wrong but just for the name of God to be given glory.
For us farmers it is a lesson to learn that we should come out with a plan which as farmers it will not only depend on rainy seasons alone, but all year long. And mostly those who have water sources they have to think deeply and do something. Two seasons now have gone and other places are more than even stricken with a three year drought. This does not mean we sit and wait .We should do something and do it now. One of our main idea is we will be using the water we have to plant as many vegetable as we can. And also plant cereals for irrigation in our non irrigation zone. Of truth it is a tough decision but with God we can. This needs a sacrifice of someone in order to make it possible. And on this I have a question are you one of those who makes things happen or you are one of those who watch things happen. Do something also.

By Ben
Farm manager.

Dusty's Bread Oven

We have built a bread oven at the learning center. The oven is built by welding a door on to the end of a steel oil drum. The oil drum is then laid on a foundation of bricks and sealed with sand and mud. It is heated by lighting a fire beneath the oil drum. A temperature between 300 degrees and 400 degrees Fahrenheit is easy to maintain. The oven can hold six 9 by 13 cake pans at one time, which can produce many cakes, breads and rolls per day.

By Dusty.

(Dusty Breeding is a Pepperdine student visiting the East African region, he has built the same ovens in Uganda. He came earlier to MITS to teach baking and cooking. This is his hobby)

The final round, the Hike and the Water Slides

Well the students and the team members wished that the holidays will stay with us forever, but as they say 'everything has an end' and we had to end it in style. First it was the Challenge Hike to the Ngong Hills to climb Seven High hills which at first seem impossible to conquer but the students made us proud even the single mother took up the challenge,they all were able to climb all the seven hills to the other side. The boys were very impressive and energized not only to finish climbing the hills but to make it all the way in the shortest time possible.Then we finished it with at trip to the water slides at the village market.This had been a tradition for Made in the streets to start the year with a trip to that place.Unfortunately We had missed this tradition last year when we
had the violence in Kenya.It so good to have peace and be able to do fun things like this. For all who made all this possible, we really enjoyed ourselves. Happy New year everyone!!!

Joel.

happy new year!!!!!

happy new year everybody.
i hope that the year has started well for everyone reading this blog. as for us now its BTS.(back to school!)and we are pretty excited about it.we have so much expectations and dreams for this year and with God on our side, we hope to accomplish most of them.
one of our dream for our classes is to improve on what we started with the fast track class. we had a test to determine who will get into the class and this time round, we have a bigger number compared to our previous class with a total of 16 students excelling in the test.
the previous class has performed averagely in the government test that they did with the top of our student,Anastacia, achieving 306 marks out of a possible total of 500 marks. this means she got an average of 61 per subject.we are pretty excited about this and cannot wait for the next class and the next semester to start.i hope that everyone will have a great year!!!!
by phillipo