Eutychus Academy Riruta

he school was charged for the certificate of registration. The school operated on an eighth of an acre piece of land which was rented at Ksh 45 000 per month. Since the founders did not have money to pay the landlord before engaging his premises, they approached the landlord and requested him to allow operation of the school for a month. The landlord agreed to give out the premises which had three rooms. One of the rooms was converted to be an office while the two remaining rooms became classrooms. The landlord who is now late was Mzee John Kimemia. The first Staff Of EutychusThe school lacked basic facilities like chalk board and other writing materials. The first chalk board was donated by one of the parents and it measured about one square metre in area. In the initial days this chalk board was used in alternation between the two classes. The time table was arranged in such a way that the time one class was learning the other class was out for a break or doing discussion. This was to be done for the first week before the school began to buy its resources. For text books each teacher was asked to borrow from friends. Students cleaning the classroomThe four founders were all teachers by profession and none of them shared teaching subjects. This meant that out of the 10 subjects that the school was offering only two subjects required a teacher to be hired. The founders therefore hired one female teacher Mrs Purity Ngila who became the first employee of the school. The staff was therefore full to teach all the subjects and work began. For the hired staff there was no problem of payment because she could receive her first salary at the end of the first month and it was assumed that the school could have stabilized economically. The students did not have desks and so stones and blocks were improvised into desks. One parent who was a carpenter offered free service to make the first desks of the school. On the first day of the school, the first school fee of 700 shilings was collected from Annet Kageha who became our first student. The following days students began paying fees which was 2500 shillings per term. By the end of the first month the school had enough money to pay the landlord and the other bills. The founders had to earn 3000 shilling every month till the school stabilized. At this moment great unity was exhibited among the founders. At some point, the founders used to share one avocado for lunch as they did the work with great sacrifice. The school received its first donation of 20 000 shillings from John Jenkins which was used towards the construction of a class room. From the agreement with the Land lord who was not able to fund construction of class rooms the school was to construct all the structures on the plot and pay half rent till all money used had been recovered. Father Martin of the Marianist community of the Catholic Church in Kawangware became the second person to help the school when he donated text books and writing materials to the school. Pastor Denis Pamba of the Nairobi International Church became the third person to help the school when he offered the church hall to be used by students during the worship services which he has maintained up to now. From then the school grew rapidly reaching a total student population of 600 students in 2006.The first national exam was done in 2005 and the best student who was Vincent Okoth attained grade B minus. In 2007 the landlord died and the school began to renegotiate with the widow over payment for the premises. In the same year the school reached the peak in performance with the best student attaining grade A minus. Performance and discipline of the school attracted more students and this led to the acquisition of a neighboring school which was called St.Enice. Eutychus was then running the two institutions. Following the post election violence of 2007 the school experienced mass transfer of students since most of the students come from slum areas. The income of the school dropped to a point where paying staff became difficult which also led to mass transfer of teachers to other schools. Payment of rent also became a problem which began a dispute with the land lady which resulted to forceful transfer of the school to another rented premises. The new premises had been leased earlier but not developed and was larger than the first one. In 2008 the school struggled to construct four class room on the new piece of land and at the start of 2009,the school relocated from the first premises and closed the new branch it had acquired merging the two schools. With the few students it had the school slowly recovered and by the end of 2009 the population of the students was back to 500.Love shack Kenya, an NGO, had been paying fees for some students in the school for three years. Through its cooperation with the British embassy the NGO mobilized the staff of this embassy to contribute and build five class rooms a kitchen and bought a water tank. Following the earlier struggles with the landlord the school strategized on how to acquire its own piece of land to cut on rent expenses. In 2012 the school accumulated savings and purchased a piece of land on the outskirts of Nairobi. The school is in the plan of developing the land into a fully fledged low cost boarding school. In 2013 the school formalized and converted to a fully registered school status with the ministry of Education. It also converted from a a partnership to a limited company with the four founders becoming the board of directors.