Abdi Lidonde’s dream of constructing a school for poor children in his native Kenya will soon become reality. Work on the multimillion-dollar facility, which will be located about 60 miles northwest of the capital city of Nairobi, is expected to begin next month.
The school will serve students in kindergarten through grade 8. There is a great need for the school in Kenya, where widespread poverty plagues the region.
“The kids are skinny and always crying because they have no food. The water’s not clean and you have diseases that wipe out villages. AIDS takes care of whatever is left,” Lidonde told the Telegram & Gazette.
“What little money there is, it’s usually not spent on education,” Lidonde said.
A farm will be set up to help sustain the community.
Lidonde, who has worked at the College of the Holy Cross for 26 years and is a supervisor in the physical plant department, is naming the school after his mother, Beverly, who instilled a love of learning in him.
“Even if things were not the best, my parents had the vision that education and encouragement were the keys to taking us out of poverty,” he told Holy Cross Magazine last year.
Lidonde has received support from the Holy Cross administration. An eight-member board of trustees includes Holy Cross faculty members, administrators, and alumni, including Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., president emeritus at the College. A May 12 fundraiser at the Hogan Campus Center drew about 250 people.
The school is expected to open in July 2008.
Read the Telegram & Gazette story.
Related Information:
• Read more about Abdi Lidonde and his plans regarding the Beverly School in Holy Cross Magazine
Holy Cross Employee Plans to Build School in Kenya for Impoverished Children
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