In very heart of Africa, along the way from Nairobi to Kampala, approaching the Kenya-Uganda border, at a small country town called Ugunja, one comes across the “Saint Clemens Vocational Training Center”. The school had been the long held dream of a local Catholic woman of deep faith, Irene Clemens Atieno, who desired to empower the young adults of the area with skills to sustain themselves and their future families.
Little by little, beginning first with one classroom, Irene Clemens managed to set up a Training Center that now can host up to one thousand students. However, she was not blessed with good health and, as she achieved her purpose, was found with a cancer that would take her to her grave in 2014. Aware of her frail condition, approaching the end of her life, she handed over the Training Center to the local St. Joseph Mission, now run by the Consolata Missionaries.
The Vocational Center, named after its foundress’ Saint name, offers courses in tailoring (both dress designing and sewing), hospitality (preparing and serving food and beverage), barber and hair styling, as well as computer science, welding and masonry.
Although the school started out well, our missionaries at Ugunja are seeing that now it needs a boost. They ask us to help them buy new equipment for the following courses:
• materials required for the hospitality, food and beverage course (to equip the training kitchen);
• materials required for the barber and hair styling course (barber chairs, clippers, etc.);
• materials required for dress designing and sewing course (sewing machines, cloth, etc.).
They would also like to entice teenagers to attend the St. Clemens Vocational Center by providing it with a good soccer field, and ask for an aid to level and mark a piece of land adjacent to the school buildings.
The budget for all this amounts to about twenty thousand US dollars.
Through your support, Irene Clemens’ great idea and generous deed will yield even more fruit and give many young boys and girls a “working future”!
On behalf of our missionaries at Ugunja, Kenya, we thank you in advance for your most generous gift.