When it was suggested that Cedar Park might like to be involved with Kombaka School, I had no idea just how important our relationship with Kenya would come to be.

To kickstart our link Jim Leftwich and Peter Fish came into Cedar Park and ran a fantastic assembly presentation, explaining to the children just how different life is for our Kenyan school and community. The video and pictures really made an impact – especially as Peter and Jim were able to speak from experience and answer specific questions our children had.

Our first school focus was to raise funds for Kombaka School – a school that was struggling against all of the obstacles that a community fighting AIDS has to contend with. Our first efforts were amazing. We ran a soft toy raffle – the children brought in soft toys as donations and bought raffle tickets. The raffle, the highlight of the week, consumed a Friday afternoon and raised a huge sum, far more than we ever expected.

Further excitement followed some weeks later when we heard that the money had been spent to buy materials for the re-build of Kombaka School and photos of the building work arrived.

Kombaka School choir practice to sing a specially written song of thanks to Cedar Park School.

Now that we have been linked for several years we have come to know the school well; Kombaka is a branch of Cedar Park! We are learning about a very different community where we can draw comparisons and contrasts. We are writing to the children and starting to understand their hopes and dreams. We are seeing the funds we have raised go directly to the school to buy key items such as school uniforms for the orphans and new latrines. During our last Ofsted inspection our children impressed the inspectors with their knowledge of Kombaka life, religion and culture and spoke eloquently about just how much we care. This was included in our very pleasing Ofsted report.

Classroom at Cedar Park School

Geographically we are on different continents and thousands of miles apart yet our children and staff at Cedar Park are equally concerned about the children and staff in Kombaka School as they are about the class next door. Knowing Kombaka through the invaluable help of the Amani UK team, Jim and Peter in particular, has given a great deal to all of the Cedar Park School community. Their regular reports and messages from the school on DVD continue to draw us together. We are hopeful that one day soon a team from our school will visit Kombaka and allow us to meet in person. What a day that will be!

Pauline Prince
Deputy Head Teacher
Cedar Park School

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