The heavy rains that pounded parts of Eastern Africa have stopped, and the flood waters have subsided, but the ripples can still be felt across different sectors.
For six years, Jennifer Jomo and her husband ran a school in Mathare, an informal settlement in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. But what the flood waters did not wash away were flattened by demolition squads following a government directive that buildings built near rivers be brought down.
“The school was brought down because there was so much water here. In all these years, we had never seen water like that.” Jomo observed.
Schools reopened for the second term in May, after two postponements earlier in the same month due to the floods, which claimed nearly 300 lives and caused extensive damage nationwide. In total, over 300,000 people have been affected.
It’s a situation that halted learning at the institution. A local church offered to host Jomo’s students in the little church building so they could continue their education. Today, the children listen keenly, trying to ignore the sounds of the other students.
They are among the lucky ones. A new report says about half a million Kenyan children have not returned to school after the deluge. The waters may have subsided in parts of the country. However, experts warn that they might have carried away the hopes and ambitions of the school children in some of the affected areas.
“The majority of our students are back in school, but they are in a state of panic,” he said.
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Assessments by the Kenyan Education Ministry, Save the Children, and UNICEF indicate that the rains damaged infrastructure in numerous schools, rendering them unusable. Some roads are impassable, and many families have been displaced, leaving parents unable to pay school fees.
The floods have dealt a critical blow to the country’s already struggling healthcare system, slowed by inadequate resources for the prompt mobilization of medical personnel and resources to the flood-hit areas.
An assessment by the Ministry of Education also indicated that over 20,000 toilet blocks are either sunken or severely damaged by raging floodwaters, posing serious health risks to over 1.5 million schoolchildren across the country.
Storms and flash floods turned roads into rivers and inundated homes with waist-high muddy water across the country, including Nairobi. Stakeholders are calling on the Kenyan government to rebuild damaged infrastructure and support those affected by the recent floods.
Experts are warning that unless the government and other stakeholders act fast, thousands of children could drop out of school, their dreams washed down the drain with the floodwaters.
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