School Information: Irigithathi is a Mixed Day Primary School in Naro Moru, Nyeri County, Kenya. It has 311 mainstream students and 46 Special Needs students in grades one through nine. It is one of the few schools in the country that educates mainstream and Special Needs students together, in what is called the “Integrated Model.”
Project Needs Assessment: The school currently has a 360’ x 90’ ‘shamba’, or school garden, but due to lack of water it has not been cultivated for several years and is now just a field of weeds. The Special Needs students receive two meals a day, seven days a week, at the school. The mainstream students have lunch daily.
Adding a garden requires water, seedings, a fence, a drip system, and someone to care for it. The school will hire a local man to manage and tend to the garden. The students are excited to learn how to plant and grow vegetables, which will give them a life-skill.
The new garden will be a 330’ x 101’ fenced off portion of the existing shamba, and will grow vegetables (onions, beans, kale, carrots, potatoes, cabbages). Any surplus produce will be sold to supplement the sparse kitchen budget.
This project includes fencing the plot, preparing the ground, planting seedlings, drip irrigation, installing a 10,000-liter main storage tank connected to the main water source, and a 5,000-liter water garden storage tank. Once this is done, 3 additional water tanks (5,000-liter tanks to be placed by the girls’ dorm, boys’ dorm, and kitchen) and rooftop gutters. The water will be used for cooking, cleaning, bathing, drinking, and irrigation.
