“Persistence Pays” – This school motto has proven true through the years that KCEF has been partnering with Esther Waweru, founder and headmistress of Gentle Bells School.
Esther Waweru had established a preschool in a small hut when we joined her to support her efforts.
Gentle Bells School was KCEF’s initial venture in Kenya.
Gentle Bells School–KCEF’s first Kenyan partner school–is in a poor, arid area of the Rift Valley an hour and a half northwest of Nairobi, on land purchased by and in a building built by KCEF. At the beginning of our partnership, in 2007, Gentle Bells was a preschool with 15 students; today 230 Longonot students in pre-K through eighth grade are getting a first-rate education–and breakfast and lunch every school day.
Gentle Bells today is providing quality education and nutrition to 230 students.
This is very good news, since only half of Longonot’s 1500 school-aged children attend school. Gentle Bells is designated as a Registered school by the Ministry of Education.
In January 2015 KCEF helped the first 8th-grade graduates move on to secondary schools with scholarships of 25% of their school fees.