2012 Calendar

Keep an eye out for the 2012 West Special School Calendar, complete with photos of the children, their artwork, the school, and various moments along their journey. Because the calendar will primarily serve as a way to gather money for maintaing the school itself, feeding + clothing the children, paying teacher's wages, and supporting construction projects on campus, the starting price for one calendar is 25 USD or 17 GBP. We'll leave the maximum contributing price up to our buyers and supporters.

We will start selling these in approximately one month, so be sure to stay updated with West Special School news!

Photo: Sharon and her artwork (a featured photo in the calendar). June 2011.

September 2011.

We have finally managed to sort out the arrangements for getting money out to the school. With this new method we were able to send chunks of money out far cheaper than Western Union or MoneyGram. Having received the money those at West went hard to work to spend it wisely. With contribution from some wonderful people at BRBC (our church in England) and, of course, Missions on the Move in Canada things are really starting to take shape for next semester. The following is a a part of a recent email from Kutete on the ground in Chwele regarding the spending of the money. It is a marvel to us in the Western world how far our God-given resources actually go!

"We have a new teacher on us-his name is GEORGE OCHIENG. We had a whole day with him today and we reckon he is a nice young man. Over his professional training, he is deaf and that is a bonus. But over and above that, he is born again. He is ready to move in on Tuesday. We had a lengthy day with him and he was excited that so many of his kind were gathered together at West! We are sure to retain him longer than we would a teacher who has speech and hearing.

This was after many false starts in our search for teachers. The sort we were seeking are either all taken and for the ones available, they could not take what we were offering as remuneration.
We got the money that the Cliburns sent, last Saturday, thank you James. We have bought 15 bags of cement, bought enough two mature trees for firewood-which should last us many months to come. We have bought enough maize to last us upto the end of the year.
We are paying The Soldier this month's wages tomorrow-Monday.
We have contracted a cook for the school and she will be at her station tomorrow morning.
We have leased a house for the teacher in which he moves on Tuesday.
We have bought two Teachers' chairs.
We have bought school previsions-Salt, bar soap, steel wool, cooking fat-enough to take us for some time.
We have bought a classroom desk which should be complete by tomorrow morning.
We open school KESHO (TOMORROW) for the third and last term this year.
And we hopefully start baking bricks tomorrow!
And we shall hire two-three extra hands to start the baking!"