WHERE WE STARTED
The transformation of Glorious
No electricity. No running water. No toilets. Flooded classrooms and books bought twice. This is the journey behind the beautiful school you see today and the reason the children of Mukuru are so extraordinary.
A STORY TOLD IN STEPS
From a bare iron-sheet school to the Glorious of today
These are our own photographs, kept over more than twenty years of partnership with Bishop Bonface Mang'eti and the people of Mukuru.
Mukuru, then
Muddy lanes, no drainage, waste in the open, and water carried in jerrycans. These are our own photographs from the early years of the partnership. The large water tank in this photograph tells a story of its own: access to water has never been something families here could take for granted.
The original Glorious school
More than twenty years ago Glorious had virtually nothing - timber posts, iron sheets, almost no books or writing materials, no electricity and no running water. Even as the school grew toward a thousand students, everyone shared the same few facilities.
Flooding, water and sanitation
Every rainy season, water came through the school. Children's books, supplies and equipment were destroyed and had to be purchased all over again. Sanitation was the hardest problem of all: for years there were no proper toilets with running water. Getting water and toilets that could actually flush was a tremendous accomplishment.
Feeding and caring for the children
The feeding programme has been a foundation of this ministry from the beginning. Children line up each day with their plates, and for many of them Glorious is the one place they know they will eat. Glorious has also been a home for orphaned children, some of the children Bonface brought in had no other home or parents they knew.
Gradual improvements
Year by year: books and writing materials, electricity, running water, improved sanitation, classrooms, a computer lab, science facilities, and eventually a school bus. Project Restore Hope has also supported teachers and educational materials, and the work now extends beyond Glorious to young people in university, college and vocational training.
The new Glorious school
What began as a very basic school grew into the permanent building that stands today — bright classrooms, safe grounds, and room for hundreds more children. It is easy to look at this building and not understand how extraordinary the journey to it has been.
The opportunities children have today
Children learning in proper classrooms, eating meals, using computers, drinking clean water, travelling outside Mukuru on school trips, and going on to university, college and careers as teachers, nurses, technology professionals and business owners.
What we rarely think about
Ordinary here. Extraordinary in Mukuru.
A flushing toilet, a faucet, a light switch, a book of your own, a computer, a bus ride beyond your neighbourhood. Each of these was a milestone at Glorious.
Turning on a faucet
The school began with no running water at all. Reliable water was one of the most significant milestones in this story.
A toilet that flushes
For years there were no proper toilets. Waste sometimes had to be handled by hand and carried out. Toilets with running water may be among the very few in any Nairobi settlement.
Electricity
The original school had no power. Electricity opened possibilities that simply did not exist before it arrived.
Owning a book
Books, exercise books and writing materials were scarce and had to be bought again whenever flooding destroyed them.
A dependable meal
For many children, the feeding programme has meant food they can count on as much as an education.
Using a computer
A computer lab in Mukuru gives children skills that connect them to a modern workplace.
A science laboratory
A computer lab in Mukuru gives children skills that connect them to a modern workplace.
A school bus
The bus lets children leave the settlement for the first time and see places and possibilities beyond the environment they grew up in.
A home, not only a school
Neema's story
In November 2021 Bishop Bonface wrote to Michelle and Brad about children at Glorious who knew no other home and no other parents. Glorious had become their home.
Neema was very young when her mother died in the night. In the morning she went out to play, believing her mother was asleep. When she grew hungry, the only place she knew to go for food was Glorious. She came crying, and she was fed. The next morning she came again — and this time the staff walked back with her and found that her mother had already gone.
Neema is at Glorious now. She has no mother and no father she has ever known, and this school is her home. Other children Bishop Bonface met on the streets years ago — small and hungry then — are healthy young people finishing school today.
Bishop Bonface also remembers the years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when this partnership first began. He watched neighbours who tested positive lose their work and fall into extreme poverty. He will be sharing more of that history in his own words, and we will add it here.