DEB ROONEY

  Deb Rooney is cofounder of BEADS for Education, an organization designed to sponsor education for high school girls from the underprivileged tribal communities in Kenya.  We spent three days with her last week looking at schools of all types, private, public, high school, grade school.  For a number of reasons, she has chosen to start her own high school this year with 40 to 50 of her hand-picked best.  It opened about three weeks ago. Lest you think this is a high- brow group designed to finance nice safaris in Africa, this is what we found: We drove a couple of hours south of Nairobi and turned onto an unmarked path some might call a dirt road.  No sign for the school ‘cuz they get charged for it.  Travel two miles in and there is a wire fence, two concrete buildings, an open kitchen shed, and an outhouse, two opaque plastic greenhouses with zipper entries, another special outhouse for Debbie and sister Sue. Both buildings without running water or electricity. Debbie, Sue and some staff sleep in 4 beds in the library.  The only power now is from two small solar panels which will charge computers and cell phones.  Shower is by warmed water poured in a bucket hung overhead next to the outhouse. The kitchen is managed by one guy with two open pots and open fire.

 Serves about the same thing every day to the 60 or so folks, not including the 20 porridges served to the 20 new nursery schoolers.  The cost per day to feed the 60+ is still being determined. The nursery school kids appeared almost spontaneously by word of mouth out of nowhere These kids are taught by Debbie’s graduates as an internship.  The nursery schoolers have come from over five miles away, walking, some of them by themselves!!! A tour of the several acre compound reveals a broken zipper on one of the greenhouses, not fixable without the company that built it.  One end of one greenhouse was dying for lack of water due to the grade of the hill.  A couple of recent crop plantings with stakes in the ground were dying for unclear reasons. The water tank has to be filled every few weeks from a truck from afar.  The cost of water per day has yet to be determined. If a well is drilled, starting cost about $13,000. The goal is to be entirely self-sustaining in the future. Food, water, power. Don’t think for a minute, however, that this group was anything but proud and excited about this endeavor.  There was not a single face not smiling anywhere. After the tour, we visited the students in the classroom where they sang their new school anthem to the tune of “Finlandia” with words written by Sue. The lyrics came to Sue like an epiphany under mysterious circumstances a while ago, and they were powerful. Debbie, Bev, Sue and I were brought to tears.  Debbie still cries every time she hears it. No easy day at BEADS for Education.