Three Riverside South businesses are fundraising to build a new nursery school, but it’s not for Ottawa – they’re sending it across the world to Kenya.
Tiny Hoppers, Global Child Care Services and Coco’s Café will host a two-day fundraiser on Friday, July 22 and Saturday, July 23 in an effort to raise $25,000 for a much-needed nursery school in Sabaki Village on the coast of Kenya.
From open to close on Friday and Saturday, Coco’s Café at the corner of Canyon Walk Drive and Spratt Road will transform into a Kenyan cacophony of coffee and cultural displays, and proceeds from all small coffees and small ice creams will go toward the nursery school fund. Two local authors will also sell signed copies of their children’s books, with all proceeds benefiting the project.
Suzanne Stoltz, one of the authors and a volunteer public relations co-ordinator for Elimu, the Ottawa-based charity working to build the school in Kenya, said the village currently rents a leaky cinderblock building with only one room. Although this is a step up from the even leakier one-room mud hut the children attended until the spring, a new and permanent nursery school is an important first step for supporting children and their educational futures.
“For the local management to rent that cinderblock place, it starts to impact their ability to pay for teachers and for parents to send their kids there,” she said, noting that the Kenyan government has recently begun to support childhood education in earnest, suggesting that now is the time to build a school. “Kenya in particular has embraced education in the past few years. They started paying for children’s education from Grade 1 onward. They’re making some real inroads in terms of at-risk children.”
Elimu, an Ottawa-based charity run by Ottawa resident Nina Chung who spends more than half her year in Kenya setting up partnerships, is dedicated to furthering children’s education in developing countries. Stoltz said in their focus area of Kenya, school materials are in short supply. That’s where Riverside South daycares come in.
“They are providing some raw materials and teaching tools, because in Kenya they have nearly nothing in terms of materials. They cut up milk cartons to make letters of the alphabet, and pencils are very expensive,” she said. The two daycares plan to send posters and other learning tools to the school as well, and a teaching exchange is in the works.
“It’s a fantastic learning opportunity for students on both sides. There are so many things that can be taught in terms of exploring how another culture lives: what trees they have, what animals. There are so many things kids can relate to,” Stoltz said. “It’s also about awareness and understanding, because if you foster it now it will continue throughout their lives.”
Each daycare is also doing their own separate part; Global Child Care Services has been fundraising through its city-wide network, and Tiny Hoppers will donate an extra $0.25 for every ice cream sold at Coco’s Café on Friday and Saturday.
For more information about the Elimu nursery school project, visit www.elimu.ca.