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Edmund Rice Catholic Education Centre (ERCEC – formerly Brother Beausang) is a private, diocesan school governed and administered by the Congregation of Christian Brothers. It provides formal education at primary and secondary levels for 540 children facing injustice and adversity within Embulbul community. The project has been supported by ERFA for a number of years.
Currently, ERCEC relies on international donor support to run its operations. The school’s efforts to identify local development partners have proven difficult. Therefore, the school’s stakeholders saw need for a school based project that would generate income to improve sustainability, create capacity building opportunities for local community for their self-sustenance and improve employability. The current existing dairy project is therefore being upscaled.
The project will include construction of a new 20-cow commercial dairy with biogas facility for the school’s energy requirements and silo storage for cattle feed. With modern methods of urban farming the dairy will generate income and be an education point for the school’s students and wider community. The income derived from the project is intended to assist the school in meeting recurrent expenditure.
The project, a diocesan school, serves a population of students and parents coming from Embulbul informal settlement where unemployment rates remain high and where there is no local vocational institution. The trades centre (carpentry and joinery) was built and fitted out several years ago through ERFA donor funding. The program now seeks to better equip the unit and deliver vocational classes (integrating carpentry into the current school curriculum).
We would like to thank the wonderful people at the ‘Project Kenya’ initiative in Australia for their support of ERCEC.
To learn more about Edmund Rice Catholic Education Centre please visit http://www.bbcec.org/
