Dear All,

The year 2010 is coming to a conclusion; the CBSM family in Kimilili is taking stock of its achievements and making comparisons to the same seasons in previous years. From all our hearts, we have a lot to thank you and God for the year 2010!

There is growth and stability of the projects than there was at the same time previous year. And there is hope. Together we have laid a foundation that shall benefit generations beyond our life span. Thank you for being part of this foundation.

CBSM board members, the women groups, teachers, and the confessions of children have moved from desperate talk to confidence. Thank you for being source of hope for the hopeless.

Thank you all for the school land. The generous donations we received from all over the world was inspiring for those CBSM members living in a rural area where they often feel isolated and left alone with their worries. There is now a solid home for the school, and the end to paying rents and a good step towards making the school more self-sustainable.

Thank you for women groups vocational training programs that has enabled them to do business with confidence against all the odds. They have learnt to overcome the challenges posed previously by lack of capital, information and face the cultural prohibitions that required women to be child bearing alone.

CBSM has functional structures in place for better service delivery to the community and this has been possible by sharing information, ideas, etc. Thank you very much.

Evaluation of overall our CBSM achievements include amongst other things the following:
  • Building a strong board of managers in Kimilili to take over the day-to-day running of the school and business supervision and community matters
  • Proposal writing by the UN online volunteer groups
  • Producing new learning manuals for our women co-ops and youth group vocational gardening training program
  • The start-up of three new small-scale businesses concentrating on bulk seed storage and distribution and running a bakery
  • Holding the first CBSM Kimilili Football Tournament
  • Holding four successful fund raising events in Kimilili, Nairobi, Ireland, and Germany
  • Raising sufficient funds for the purchase of school land and lease of a further plot of land for sports and school gardens
  • Receiving the volunteer assistance of Sebastian (Germany) and Vicki (Ireland) in our Kimilili community towards building stronger international ties and for cultural exchange
All of these events could only have happened through the rigorous engagement of the local team, as well as our international members. It would not have been possible without your participation.
 
Your monetary donations, information, ideas, willingness to be part of the team, sharing the life and work of the CBSM members with others has contributed greatly towards these achievements. We thank everybody for the role they played. It is the source of energy for our growth.

Thank you, Lia, for providing overall leadership to CBSM without which it would have been very difficult for the momentum to be sustained throughout the year. Thank you all for your teamwork, for sparing time for CBSM. Thank you and may God remember to bless you all.

Kindly, the CBSM family in Kenya wish every one a prosperous and successful New Year and continued teamwork together for the year 2011!
 
Amen

Rev.Wasike

on behalf of the CBSM women’s groups, children and board of management
please forward to as many as all that know CBSM

 
by Lia

We have some exciting news; two new volunteers from Switzerland are coming  to Kimilili in January. Agnes and Alexandra (Alex) both work in the same consulting company in Zurich. Recently, Agnes was talking to Alex about her dream of going somewhere far away for a while and how she had approached Rev. Wasike about realising this dream. Without a pause in their discussion, Alex asked Agnes whether she could come along as well. 



Agnes and Alex are taking their well-earned vacation time and going to work with the children and adults of CBSM, which we are sure will be a great learning experience for them, as well as those in Kimilili. The board of CBSM are in the process of planning workshops and various other events which the two new volunteers can hold or be a part of during their stay.

The CBSM community are excited by this prospect. There is work to be done both in the school, as well as with the women’s co-ops and youth groups, whose seeds Vicki sowed this last fall during her visit.




Agnes is going to hold a business-training workshop with several of the women co-ops and youth groups. The workshop participants will learn about and build free emission silos (necessary links). Agnes will also be working closely with the women co-ops teaching them about the necessary of M&E (monitoring and evaluation) of their on-going projects.



Alex, who studied art, will be taking off where Vicki left off working with the teachers and children of the CBSM Education Center. She is going to help train the teachers on various methods for teaching art. She will teach the children about collages and hold our first art contest. We plan to publish or print the winning selection as notebooks or postcards.



The two women are in the throws of preparation and are very much looking forward to their time in Kimilili.