ABOUT THE SCHOOL AND STUDENTS

St. La Salle School in Karemeno, Kenya, is owned by the De La Salle Christian Brothers in Kenya, and it welcomed its first  class in January 2016. St. La Salle School is a co-ed secondary boarding school that currently serves 150 students (125 boys  and 25 girls) in grades nine through 11. The school will add grade 12 next year. St. La Salle School has 10 teachers and nine  support staff members. Students come from the local community and the suburbs of Nyeri. The majority of students are  from very poor families and depend on help from the school. They cannot afford the school fees of $US900 per year. While  at home, some students do not have an adequate supply of food. The school is in the process of finishing the girls dorm,  which will house 100 young women and allow the school to serve more girls. Constructing a new boys dorm will follow that  project. St. La Salle has a hydroponic farm for food for its animals, and it harvests tilapia, which is used for meals for students  and sold to raise money for scholarships. The school also grows a variety of vegetables and raises pigs for food.

ABOUT KAREMENO

St. La Salle School is located in the rural Karemeno village in Nyeri County, which is in the central region of Kenya. It is  seven kilometers (approximately four miles) from the highway and 50 kilometers (approximately 31 miles) from Nyeri,  the main town in the area. Karemeno is located in a semi-arid area and falls within the leeward side of both Mt. Kenya and  Ambadare Ranges. As a result, it receives very little rain. It is very hot during the day and very cold at night. Community  members farm to feed themselves and their families, not for profit or trade due to the lack of rain and frost at night. The  roads are all-weather roads and are poorly networked. They are impassable when it rains and very dusty when it is dry.

LIFE AT ST. LA SALLE SCHOOL

St. La Salle School’s academic year is controlled by the government. It starts in  January and ends in November. The year consists of three terms. Term one starts  in January and ends at the end of March, followed by a break of three weeks. The  second term begins in late April or early May and ends in July for another three-  week break. The third term runs through September and November, followed by a  long break in November and December. St. La Salle School is being well received  by the community. During each term, students visit one very financially poor  family, with a focus on the elderly. Since the students do not have money, they  offer their time to clean the home and collect firewood for the family as well as  share the Gospel.

DAILY SCHEDULE

5:00 a.m. – Wake up, study  6:30 a.m. – Breakfast
7:00 a.m. – Clean classrooms, feed animals, etc.
8:00 a.m. – Classes begin  1:00 p.m. – Lunch (half hour)  4:00 p.m. – Classes end
4:00 p.m. – Clean classrooms, feed animals, etc.
5:00 p.m. – Extra-curricular activities
7:00 p.m. – Dinner, studies9:00 p.m. –Bedtime

CHALLENGES AND NEEDS

Being relatively new, the school faces a lot of challenges and has a  number of needs. It does not have enough classrooms, dorm space,  textbooks or chairs and desks. Not having enough resources to  support financially poor students is the biggest challenge. The school  also lacks a means of transportation to take students to different  events. It needs to build a septic tank in order to manage sewage  overflow. The school would also like to create a website.

FROM BROTHER STEPHEN
Dear Friends, thank you so much for accepting to be twinned with  our school. You are the first international friends that we have. As a  young school and as your younger brothers and sisters just starting to  crawl, we hope you will hold us by the hand and walk us along with  you. We hope to establish a good friendship that will be beneficial to  both of us. God bless you abundantly.

RELAN TWINNED SCHOOLS

• Benilde-St. Margaret’s School – St. Louis Park, Minnesota
  Sue Skinner  sskinner@bsmschool.org
   Becca Meagher  bmeagher@bsmschool.org
• Cristo Rey De La Salle East Bay High School – Oakland, California 
  Sheila Garcia  sgarcia@cristoreydelasalle.org
  Chris Trinidad  ctrinidad@cristoreydelasalle.org
• West Catholic Preparatory High School – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  Michael Field  mfield@westcatholic.org

CONTACT ST. LA SALLE SCHOOL
Principal: Brother Stephen Mwaura, FSC 
Email: s4mgichuru@yahoo.co.uk

Skype: STEPHEN GICHURU
Mail: P. O. Box 588Nyeri 10100, Kenya