National Deputy Chairman of Kenya Scouts Association Ruth Kenyaga has elevated Baharini Primary School at the Shauri Yako Slum Estate in Nakuru City’s 4K Club to international status through their food security project that feeds the school and the families of the club members.
Mrs Kenyaga who is also a teacher at the school has turned the 4K club with only 32 members into a local and international sensation-simply because the school has become self-sufficient in its food production.
Interviewed by KNA Monday at the school, she said as a scout’s trainer, every school she has taught, her passion has always been the revival of the fading 4K club, which in most schools isn’t taken seriously due to lack of funding.
“My deep desire of ensuring every child eats a balanced deity for better learning drives me into turning any piece of land within the school compound into a food production spot. Within the flower gardens, we interplant vegetables and they enhance the beauty,” says commissioner Kenyaga.
She said nothing demoralizes a teacher than teaching hungry children with rumbling stomachs, who keep on yawning, and sending a non-verbal message to the teacher that, they need food more than the lessons they are being taught.
Kenyaga joined the school last year after implementing a similar project at Kariba Road Primary School, and she was transferred to the Bahraini Primary to implement the 4K club food project.
She said the entire school consumes their vegetables and the surplus the members are allowed to carry home.
But, the major condition of being a member of the club is to implement a similar project at home by growing a kitchen garden or planting vegetables in sacks or containers.
Additionally, she said the home projects have attracted many visitors to the school to learn, and even tourists visit the school due to its unique project.
Her greatest excitement was last week when officials from Statehouse Nairobi visited the school and bought one of their members a sweater.
Apart from that, a Norwegian tourist who admired the school’s project has come back to assist them after spreading the word about it in their country.
