Mama Sue was delighted to welcome two visitors, holidaying in Watamu, when they called in to visit Happy House. Jack Pennington and Brodie Hibberd, from Wimbledon, had seen our liveried school buses around the village and decided to come to find out more about the place behind the name." Mama Sue said: They brought us nappies, deodorants, clothes, toothpaste and exercise books. "Uncle Ronnie showed them around both home and school, they were very impressed and surprised how lovely everywhere is."
There are many ways of getting in touch with your Happy House sponsor child, Emails are the easiest and Uncle Ronald, our social worker, goes through each with the child it has been sent to, explains anything they don't understand, and prints it out for them to keep in their memory box. For birthdays, cards are wonderful but sometimes the post takes so long, they arrive after the day and postage is costly, E-cards are another way of greeting your sponsor child on their birthday and they absolutely love them.
Here Mama Sue views an e-card sent to Elizabeth for her fourth birthday.
As we heard from Mama Sue, the rains have brought problems with some of our makuti thatched roofing. But local craftsmen have been on the job, making good any areas that have shown leaks, as Uncle Ronald, our social worker, reports.
It's highly skilled work but was done quickly and efficiently using makuti tiles made local from locally grown palm.
The work is now completed and our roffing is watertight once again, So all in all, it may have cost us £400 but that will be putting food on the tables of local people.
There was lots of singing and lots of celebration at Happy House when it held its weekly kidz club.
9t is a time when birthday children of the week receive their greetings and gifts. This week's birthday were Husna who is 13, who received her gift from Papa Dave, Jacinta 13, Elizabeth 4 and Said 9. It was certainly their favourite day!
Every week Happy House holds Kidz Club - a time when the whole family, children and staff, come together to share news and to celebrate birthdays, And as part of this there is a fun sing-off between the boys and girls. The competition is usually judged by Mama, Papa, a member of staff or a visitor but this week Mama invited one of the kids, Charity, to pick the winner. It wasn't easy, but she came down on the side of the girls - who were clapping and cheering at their victory. Here you can see her making her choice and the two choirs she had to choose between!
Jolly Phonics is a fun and child centred approach to teaching literacy through synthetic phonics which has now been introduced to the pre-primary curriculum in Kenya. With actions for each of the 42 letter sounds, the multi-sensory method is motivating for children and teachers, who can see their students achieve. Happy House paid for pre-primary teachers from Happy House School to go on a course during the Easter holidays so they would have a good understanding of how Mama Sue said:"They really enjoyed it, and have been given materials to use. They are really excited about the new methods. "It is great that we can use the our computers and the children's android tablets in class. "We look forward to seeing the results this new programme brings." In this video Teacher Neema is our guide.
Secondary school lasts for four years in Kenya, and it is a time when young people focus on achieving the results to take them on into the workplace. So at Happy House we feel that it is important for them to hear from professionals about their field of work and the route that led them to it. Engineer Justin Juma joined Mama Sue for an informative session with students. He is a self employed engineer who fitted our electric fences and the CCT cameras at our school and a really nice man. His company is called Jazz Enterprises. He described his school life where students were beaten with sticks and how he grew up in the constant shadow of family poverty. His determination to gain knowledge and skill got him into engineering school and now has a successful business with eight staff.
