Turkey supports Kenyan school with valuable donation

By Andrew Wasike and Magdalene Mukami

NAIROBI, Kenya

The Turkish government on Wednesday donated home science equipment worth at least Two-Million-Kenya-shillings (around $20,000) to the Our Lady of Mercy Girls secondary school in Nairobi which has around 1500 students.

According to a statement from the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), the school was chosen to receive the equipment after a delegation from the Turkish Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya visited the area to learn about the various socio-economic activities around the school, TIKA initiated a Bakery and Home Science Equipment Project to support the students, parents and teachers from the community which has most of its youth unemployed.

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Turkish Ambassador to Kenya, Deniz Eke, who delivered the donation to the school, said that the equipment not only aims to help the students in improving their school grades but also prepare them for employment by equipping them with lifelong skills required for many career opportunities.

Pointing at the equipment, Deniz Eke said: “These will help equip our girls with skills which will in future generate jobs for them. They will also generate funds for the school through the sale of baked products among others."

“Whenever Turkey through TIKA has a project that involves girls in Kenya, I am particularly happy, not because I am a woman myself but because women are lifelong teachers, women can change a lot in the world if better equipped.”

Eke called on the students of Our Lady of Mercy to prevent academic malnutrition by eating a lot of books. She promised that her country will donate books to the school to help them combine academic work with home sciences.

“Today what we are sharing with you is a very small token, I am sure that with all the young ladies sitting here Kenya has a much much brighter future. Turkey is very much happy to be part of that brighter future,” Eke told parents, teachers and students who had gathered at the school for the handover ceremony.

According to TIKA, the home science equipment provided include: electric sewing machines, refrigerators, gas cookers, fabrics and threads, iron boxes, scissors and needles, knives, cooking pots and pans, blenders and juicers, cake mixers and dinner sets.

The bakery equipment includes: baking tins, dough mixers, bread proofers, bread slicers, charcoal ovens and baking trays.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Evangeline Mashira, a home science teacher at the school, thanked the Turkish government for their generous donation.

“We had to bring our iron boxes and other home equipment to school last year during the national examinations so that the students could use them. We are a school that has many poor students. This donation has made our school to have the best well equipped Home Science department in the whole country. These are not my words but words of the representative from the Ministry of Education who came here today,” Mashira said.

Also thanking the people of Turkey was the school’s principal Esther Angwenyi who made it clear that the institution appreciates the generous donation by “Kenya’s transcontinental ally in Eurasia. Our Home Science department lacked in terms of equipment. Today our dream to have a fully stocked department has been fulfilled."