The association has adapted its commitment to the needs of the people in Kenya. The Board of Directors opened the “Rhine Valley Hospital Healthcenter” at the Maji Moto school.
Mombasa, the city of millions on the east coast of Africa, is primarily associated with vacations, sunshine and exoticism. The five-member board of directors also got to know this side of Kenya’s second-largest city when it visited the country in October. The reason for the trip was to open the infirmary of the Altstätter Verein at the Maji Moto school.
The “Rhein-Valley Hospital Healthcenter” is opened, in the back from left: Rhein-Valley Hospital Board of Directors: Eveline Alder, President Erich Kühnis, Monika von der Linden, Susanne Ganz and Benjamin Pipa. Kerstin and Levi Amudala, front row, run the Maji Moto infirmary and school.
Kenya is a country of great contrasts. The group encountered the consequences of poverty and the lack of rain for two years, especially in Maji Moto. About a two-hour drive from the metropolis of Mombasa, where the route is no longer a road but a dusty dirt road riddled with potholes, the Austrian Linz-based association Schilling for Shilling built a school in 2015. Today, about 600 children from first to eighth grade are taught there and receive breakfast and a hot lunch.
In order to be able to combine the education of the young people with basic health care, the associations Rhein-Valley-Hospital (RVH) and Schilling für Shilling (SfS) entered into a cooperation and built a health station for the students next to the school. The RVH board wants children and youth to feel confident that they will receive medical treatment if they become ill. Furthermore, clean drinking water should always be available, the most important vaccinations administered and medicines available.
A celebration with 1300 participants
For the Board of Directors, October 11 was a special day. He was allowed to visit the school, which he has been supporting on a project basis for a good year. So far, a drinking water tank, additional classrooms and a chicken farm have been realized. Now the opening of the infirmary was imminent. The population had specially organized a festival with 1300 participants. Cheering and dancing children surrounded the guests from far away Europe. All of them could see the joy and pride that the attention of the Swiss group was focused on them of all people. She had come to give the children and young people a perspective with the infirmary at the school. One student said, “Here we get to study, eat, and receive medical treatment.”
“We are very happy to be in a position to support the Maji Moto School,” President Erich Kühnis told the festive crowd. “It’s very important that the money from Switzerland and Austria reaches the right people.”
The nameplate is nailed together. The project also works because strong partners cooperate.
To make this clear to the entire population, the facility, which is financed by Swiss donations, bears the name “Rhein-Valley Hospital Healthcenter”. Both the school and the infirmary are run and administered by Austrian-born Kerstin Amudala and her husband Levi. The couple lives with their two children in the Mombasa region.
Hosts included school principal Omar Makomanyi, parent representative Kassim Jacob, village elder John Ndeti, CSO Brian Kijabi (curriculum officer), teachers, and station administrator Jennifer Mwene. With their presence and their speeches filled with pride, they showed their gratitude for the fact that the students can now count on basic health care. As the highlight of the celebration, Kerstin Amudala and Erich Kühnis cut the red ribbon to the infirmary.
