What does 2021 hold?

2021 will be a different year for the students of Humankind and the Humankind community. The Humankind Academy has been shutdown since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March. During the year, our students lost their connection to the Humankind Academy. In addition to early learning, students of HKI Academy rely on the school for meals and what they wear. Some of the kids use the uniform we provide as the only cloth that they have. The HKI Academy provides two nutritious meals to the participant’s everyday and the students depend on this for their main meal. Six months into lockdown, many of the kids were starting to show signs of malnutrition and coming to the school everyday asking the security g[guard when school will reopen.

Realizing this, we decided to provide food hampers to the families of the students and it has been well received ( a separate article on this available). Now because we have delivered food to the families HKI Academy students, many other families in the refugee camp and in the local community who are in a similar situation have been coming to the school really in need of help. Many of them are also eager to have their children join HKI Academy knowing how much difference it made for the kids who were enrolled in it.

In January of every year, we do our enrolment of new students. It is also time for us to say goodbye to our senior students who continue onto elementary school in one of the local schools. We provide them with the uniform for the schools they will be going to as well as a supply of writing exercise books and pencils. We also provide uniform and learning materials to the staying students as well as those that are enrolling anew. Next year’s enrolment and graduation will be different. First, we will likely enrol students and not have them go to school immediately. Schools in Kenya are still on a lockdown and opening is not foreseeable. Depending on when the lockdown is lifted, we will also not graduate our senior students since they have lost almost a whole year and will need to complete the remaining portion of the Pre-Primary Curriculum before proceeding to elementary school. Therefore, we will have 45 new students in addition to the 150 who are already in school.

However, when our kids graduate, they will as usual be on top of their classes in the elementary schools. Schools have always told us that the Humankind students are the brightest and smartest. This is because HKI Academy is the only Pre-Primary Program in the area. Our students come with life lessons from being in school from an earlier age.

Second, as in previous years we will see over 400 students lining up for the 45 spots of the incoming students. Many will again be turned away unhappy!

As the lockdown persists, we will continue to see the deterioration of the children’s nutritional health. In addition to continuing to support the salary of the school staff including teachers, cooks, and security guards who depend on the school, we will continue to provide food hampers to the families of the students of HKI.

This decision will cost us more in the short-term as we are providing food to their whole family, but the money is well spent to ensure our students and staff are well taken care of for their future.