KENYA

1) KENYA/ AND ALL OF A SUDDEN IT WAS QUIET AS A MOUSE
Lunga, Lunga, Tsuini Primary school. The Verkaart Development Team, a foundation established by Jan and Ans Verkaart, built in Kenya in ten years time 55 new primary schools, a few medical stations in ten years and started in 2002 with the first stage of the building of a boarding school that is to offer secondary education to 1200 deprived girls. The Verkaart -team consists of business people, schools, and private individuals and service-clubs, which all have financially adopted a complete school. You do not become a Verkaart-school out of the blue: entrance qualifications are high, severe checks are applied and this proves to work excellently. The VCL, a grammar school in The Hague, is one of the Dutch schools that have adopted a Verkaart- school in Kenya. Jan Dorrepaal, physics master at the VCL, visited, together with a number of pupils and teachers 'their' school in March, the Tsuini Primary School, near Lunga Lunga close to the border of Tanzania. In their luggage they also carried English children's books from Biblionef.

On their return Jan told enthusiastically about his experiences: ' We arrived at the school and were surprised by the excited pupils welcoming us by performing Kenyan rituals full of dances an songs. Once inside the school some 60 children sat down on the ground, tightly-packed (there is no school furniture) and we distributed the books. And suddenly it was quiet as a mouse...! All the children were leafing through the books, open-mouthed, reading pieces and looking at the beautifully coloured pictures.  I shall never forget that moment.'

Meanwhile Biblionef has already provided three Verkaart-schools with children's books and surely a lot more will follow. 

2) KENYA/HANDICAPPED CHILDREN RECEIVE BOOKS
Sunsu, Nyabondo rehabilitation centre, is a centre for handicapped children. The foundation 'De Benen nemen' is a small still young Dutch organization championing the fate of people with an amputated leg, not only in the Netherlands, but also in developing countries. One of the board members, Els Cats has paid a working visit to this rehabilitation centre. The foundation has taken 10 children under their wing and provided them with medical aids and appliances, such as artificial leg stumps, stump stockings, adapted shoes and laces. The children were wounded during internal wars. Most of them do not have parents any more, because they died during the heavy fighting. If they are lucky they have a granny or an uncle somewhere, or a brother or sister also in the centre. There are hardly any toys, and reading books are not there at all. Biblionef has been asked to donate English children's books. Two full boxes of new books have been shipped by KLM and DHL to his centre for children in Sundu. 

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