Project Kenya
The Foundation wishes to express its deep appreciation to Project Kenya which, since its establishment in 2006, has raised more than $800,000 for the work of the Christian Brothers in East Africa. The Project’s particular focus has been the Brother Beausang Catholic Education Centre (BBCEC) at Embulbul in Kenya, now a primary and secondary school for more than 800 students, representative of all major tribal and religious groups in the region.
Original School Building BBCEC 2006
Project Kenya began at St Bernard’s College, Essendon, through the pioneering initiative of John McKenna, who at the time was Deputy Principal. In 2006 John participated in an immersion program with the Christian Brothers’ projects amongst the poor in East Africa. It was through John’s enterprise and that of a group of committed colleagues at St Bernard’s that the whole College community embraced the concept of Project Kenya. Today, Project Kenya continues with the strong support of St Bernard’s, Catholic Ladies College, Eltham, Catholic Regional College, Melton and a number of parishes in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, particularly St Francis Xavier Parish, Montmorency.
Recognizing that education is the key to gaining employment and escape from the ‘poverty trap’, Project Kenya aims to:
- enable the poor to access an education which would otherwise be beyond their reach
- support the Br Beausang School in obtaining resources and equipment
- facilitate an annual immersion experience for Australian volunteers to work in the Br Beausang School and community
Embulbul is a shanty town of approximately 60,000 about 25km from central Nairobi, where the Br Beausang Centre begun in 2001 in a collection of tin huts with dirt floors as a refuge for street children. Eventually, some very basic instruction was offered and as the number of children increased the centre became a formal school and in time secondary classes were added. In 2005, the local bishop appealed to the Christian Brothers to help rescue the school from imminent closure and Br. Laurie Collins from Melbourne commenced as principal in 2006. Early 2008 saw the completion of a new 12 classroom secondary school block and later that year the construction of a science laboratory and library building. In 2010 the School Dux, whose secondary education was sponsored by Project Kenya, became the first BBCEC student to achieve an A Grade in the Kenyan Certificate of Secondary Education, a significant milestone in the short history of the school as the first group of candidates sat for the KCSE only in 2007. September 2012 saw the completion of the new primary school wing.
New Primary School BBCEC Under Construction – students symbolically expressing thanks to Australian donors
For more information, or if you would like to become a part of Project Kenya, contact John McKenna c/- St Bernard’s College, 41 Rosehill Road, Essendon 3040 or at jmckenna@sbc.vic.edu.au
To learn more about Br Beausang School, visit www.bbcec.org
Opening of New Primary School – September 2012
