A visit to Nkuru Vocational Training College – always an uplifting experience

As I said to the college students yesterday when I introduced myself to them at the start of a workshop, I’ve been visiting the college since before the first idea for it was spoken about. Initially John’s plans for the site was just to build a self-sustainable home for his dad, who had nowhere of his own to go when his time of living on, and working for the tea plantation came to end. The home was built, John’s dad now resides there, and he has no bills to pay thanks to having solar-powered electricity, biogas to cook on, rainwater harvesting to provide the water that he needs, and a herd of cows to provide manure, milk, and an income stream.

But, John’s dreams didn’t stop with moving his dad into the house. He started looking around at the needs of the community and listening to the dreams and desires of the locals. As a result, over the years, the land has developed further. First came a community-focused vocational college which has a very holistic, person-centred, project based learning approach. It focuses on vocational skills that have been requested by prospective students, and thus we find students studying catering, hair and beauty, fashion and design, and construction. There is boarding accommodation for the students, a hair and beauty salon for the locals and a restaurant for the college and community alike. Renowned for its chapattis, it is very common to see children of all ages calling by to the café on the way home home from school to buy themselves a tasty snack.

Recognising that the distance that many of the youngest children in the community were having to walk to school was approximately 2 – 3 miles, the next addition to the college was a 3-class nursery school, and so the sound of happy little voices filters down into the classrooms of the older students.

Access to water for local residents was another recognised problem, resulting in girls and women in particular having to spend long periods walking to the nearest water hole to collect this essential item, or spending precious shillings paying someone to collect it for them. Attendance at school was affected, as well as the impact on the safety of the girls when they were laden down by a jerrican of water and unable to escape from unwanted male predators. The college had access to a borehole, and more water than they needed, especially as they also do rainwater harvesting. The solution to the community water challenge was therefore to have the construction students lay water pipes from the college to the homes of the most vulnerable, bringing them access to water on tap. Yes, they have to pay for it, but it is less than they were having to pay before, and the additional benefits of time, safety, and health are considered very much worth it. The most recent addition to the college that I have been watching develop has been the fuel station, and when I was there last time, in November 2021, the basic infrastructure was in place but the pump had yet to be installed, and the final safety checks and permission to trade were yet to be granted. Yesterday’s visit to the college saw a change to all that. The pump is in, Emmanuel (Ema) the attendant has passed his proficiency test to run the fuel station, and cars and boda-bodas (motorbike taxis) are rejoicing that they finally have a place where they can buy fuel in their own community, rather than having to drive the very bumpy and dusty 6 miles to the next fuel station, and in so doing use up precious fuel to get there.

The fuel station in itself is a blessing to the community, but also is the hardware store that is tagged on to the compound. This was set up in recognition of another gap in the facilities for local folks, and so many local tradesmen and DIYers are making the most of now being able to go to their local store, rather than having to pay the transport costs to get to the store in Mityana town.

So many community-based add on’s that have resulted from the siting of this college, and as a result a real sense of community-ownership and support in the college and it’s various enterprises. It’s been a real joy to journey with John and the team in getting this far, and it was a delight to spend some time yesterday and today delivering training and workshops to the students and to the staff. Based on the conversations with John over the past 24 hours I know that there is more developments to come, and I look forward to being able to share about those projects as they materialise. I look forward to also sharing about some of the additional activities that are in place for the students – not least the weekly programme of TED talks that they run between them. But they are for the future. For now this is to celebrate all that has been achieved thus far, and the beautiful community spirit that underpins every aspect of the developments.