Happy New Year! and welcome to our 1st Newsletter of 2025!
In this newsletter we share updates about Unity School, news about one Unity student who has graduated from university, and fundraising news.
New School Year at Unity School
2025 saw the latest phase of the restructuring of school age groups. For the first time students who were Grade 8 in 2024 progressed into Grade 9 instead of moving onto secondary schools.
Grades 7,8, and 9 form Unity Lower Secondary School.
Visitors
25 students from La Rochelle in France, are working in various schools around Mombasa and 5 students will be with the team at Unity school over the coming weeks.
Nina, Juliette and Luca arrived at Unity on Monday 13th January and Leane and Louna arrived a couple of days later. We look forward to hearing their news and following their progress.
From Nina, Juliette and Luca:
“On our side everything is going well. We joined the school this Monday and we are already in love with it. The teachers are adorable, the students are always smiling and despite a certain lack of material, they are invested and they learn really quickly!”
More University success
We are delighted to share that Demaris Anyambo graduated on 19th of Dec 2024 from Moi University in Eldoret, achieving a second class honours as a Bachelor of Education in Maths and Physics.
Demaris was an orphan and was taken in by her aunt, but her aunt lived in a single room with her own children. Fortunately Unity School were able to take Demaris into the orphanage. Demaris was the best student in her year when taking the Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education and was sponsored into Secondary School, where she continued to excel, giving her an opportunity to accept a place at Moi University. Demaris is grateful to the charity.
Fundraising Update
Christmas Fundraising at Littlehampton United Church
Two weekends in December saw the church full of festivities, the first was our own Christmas Tree & Crib Festival and sale of Christmas Goods. This was followed by two concerts given by the Edwin James Festival Choir.
The Christmas Tree and Crib Festival was a huge success, Arundel C of E Primary School won the trophy for the best decorated tree, other contributors included Broadwater C of E School and River Beach School, Edwin James Festival Choir, St Joseph’s Convent, Arun Care, Trefoil Guild, U3A (who supported with a tree plus their Ukulele group) and Turning Tides. The Prayer Tree had pictures of every member of staff at Unity School, it also lit up!
The Trustees are grateful to The Edwin James Festival Choir who came to lead our Carol Singing on Friday evening by the light of the decorated Christmas Trees.
A week later they presented their Winter Wonderland Concert at Littlehampton United Church and donated £500 towards our work in Mombasa.
We know that students learn best when they are well nourished and healthy, which is why we put so much effort into maintaining the feeding and medical programmes. Since the covid pandemic the cost of food has risen enormously and at the same time, parental income has shrunk, making the feeding programme more important than ever.
We will be focusing our fundraising this year on maintaining the feeding project.
Watch out for news about how you can help.