Theresia

Nairobi, Kenya

100% repaid

Entrepreneur

Name

Theresia

Member since

December 2011

On-time repayments

122 installments  •  39%

About Me

I am a Kenyan citizen, married with a boy and two girls. I have government training in early childhood development (ECD). I am currently pursuing my national diploma in ECD. I have worked in several private education institutions (Private School) since 1993 when I completed my formal education. My bitter realization was that many of our children cannot get quality early childhood education because the fees charged by these institutions are out of reach for our poor children.

This has led to many of our children seeking refuge in other backstreet informal schools set up by insincere business people whose objectives are to exploit the situation. These schools end up either not even paying its teachers in time or at all leading to very high rate of teacher turn over, there by denying the children the much needed continuity and consistency.

This made me quit employment from a private school situated in my current residential place. My main objective was to provide this much needed early childhood education to our poor children who were always being sent out of these schools for lack of school fees. I, in collaboration with other well wishers, set up a kindergarten named “The Terrian School”. We ask parents to pay a small fee (Kshs 500 or USD 5.5 per month) to help sustain teachers, who are more of volunteers. We, however, do not send any child away for lack of fees. Our children mostly come from poor parents who are either house helps or working as labourers around the estate.

It is in this background that I make this request for a loan (of USD 1,000 at interest rate of 10%) to facilitate the expansion of this Early Childhood Education Project, which provides educational opportunities for our poor children and employment opportunities to teachers.

My Business

The Terrian School:
Since the Kenya Government is currently not funding early childhood education, we saw it an obligation to work to assist the majority of our society whose children could not get better education. It with this background, that the idea to start The Terrian School was conceived. The school is situated in Utawala – Githunguri estate. Our children mostly come from poor parents who are either house helps or working as labourers around the estate.

Since inception of The Terrian School in January 2005, we dispatch an average of 30 pupils to standard one in public primary schools every year. The parents suggested that we incorporate lower primary school levels and in January 2009 we introduced standard one. Currently we have Baby Class, Nursery, Pre-Unit, Standards One, Two and Three, a pupil population of about 70, and four teachers. Our teachers are working as volunteers, being given a token of 3,500/= to 4,000/= a month, and are motivated by the fact that they give hope to those who were otherwise hopeless.

We have tried our best and our former children are doing very well in whichever schools they join.

Loan Proposal

Terrian academy is growing. We currently have a pupil population of 95. We expect this number to grow to approximately 150 by end of the month. We have 6 teachers, including me.
We have moved to class five. Due to shortage of room / classes, all pre-school children, numbering 30, are sharing one class while class 4 and 5 are also sharing one class. We also do not have an office.
The loan we are requesting from lenders, will be used to put up two more classes (to take class five and baby class) and an office.

Feedback

17

None

None



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Loan Info

Project Type

Classic Loan

Disbursed amount

$1,005.00

Date disbursed

Jan 17, 2013

Repayment status

On Time

Projected term

12 months

Lenders

W

wmonroe

Paris, France

R

Raabo

Rungsted, Denmark

KYLE LARSON

Little Falls, United States

B

Bena

Winnipeg, Canada

eagle3

Grand Ledge, United States

G

Gastao

Covilhã, Portugal

bluntpixel

Durham, United Kingdom

S

SarahJoy

Peterborough, Canada

Hope2012

United Kingdom

B

Bpryse

Long beach, United States

P

ploeger

Perkasie, United States

Rdcmole

Cincinnati, United States

LadyofHats

Hamburg, Germany

Judith

London, United Kingdom

traciyoshiyama

Honolulu, United States

F

Fiodal

Helsinki, Finland

H

hugh1

Co Kerry, Ireland

S

share

Whitby, Canada

MakeSense

-, St. Kitts and Nevis

A

amyor2

Caloundra, Australia

T

tonilends

catalonia is not:, Spain

BenRump

Washington DC, United States

J

Jaslogic

Castle Rock, United States

Sundstroms

Falun, Sweden

S

suzerain

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

J

Jeb33red

Bourne end, United Kingdom

Creole1

Mobile, Alabama, United States

A

aiban

Austin, United States

pentatonicscale

Niiza-shi, Japan

vinnio

Burlingame California, United States

M

MorganBlue

United States

Maartje

Hinteregg, Switzerland

Ask Theresia a question about this project, share news and photos of your own, or send a simple note of thanks or inspiration.

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  • rhagen    Dec 23, 2015

    Marry Christmas and a Happy New Year Theresia!
    Wishing you and and all your loved ones all the very best for 2016!

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  • Trish    Jun 1, 2015

    I am so proud of your hard work. Your school will help so many well deserving kids.

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    • Theresia    Jul 6, 2015

      Dear Trish, thanks for the complement. It is quite hard. We don't have a feeding program but many times we have to feed some kids whose parents fail to provide for. Because of the free environment we have created in the school, some kids are always candid enough and will tell you they have not taken any meal since the previous day. Some of these are facts which we easily prove to be true. At the moment, we are housing one of our standard 7 pupil whose father has abandoned. The father is a mason and a very serous drunkard who does not even pay rent. Their house have been locked by the landlord and the father simply disappeared, not caring where his two kids are putting up. The mother had earlier separated from him, leaving their two kids (a boy and a girl) behind.

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  • Kerry Tiedeman    Mar 9, 2015

    My name is Kerry and I am a Client Relationship Intern for Zidisha in Nairobi, Kenya. I had the opportunity to meet Theresia on the outskirts of Nairobi at her elementary school last week.

    I was very excited to see her school. It can be especially fun, because being a visiting foreigner, the kids are usually very excited to see you and have a story to tell, since it's not every day they see a "Mzungu". This day did not disappoint. I met Theresia and I introduced myself to each classroom. There were many giggles from the 205 students ranging from ages of 3 to 12.

    Theresia has been a teacher since 1998 after moving to Nairobi from Kisumu County in western Kenya. She worked a private school for a couple years and then received her ECDE (Early Child Development Education) while working at the same time. Then in 2011 she continued her education and received her college diploma.

    Theresia began theschool in 2001 with her salary from the private teaching job. She saw the need for a school in the community she lived that was more affordable for the local families. Her school is private, but the fees are 800KES/month, which is a little less than $10. Public schools in Kenya are few and far between so Theresia has provided a great option for the members of her community.

    She began the school with one employee and five children. One of the five students has done so well that she was awarded a scholarship for a prestigious national school from Equity Bank, a company which will sponsor her all the way through University. Theresia feels extremely proud of her former student and has been slowly adding grades since those five preschoolers. This is in large part due to the help of Zidisha lenders. She has used her loans to increase the number of classrooms and accomodate more children and now employs 10 teachers. She hopes with furthur loans she will be able to build a second story and add more classrooms. The school is growing with the kids.

    Theresia has taken a piece of land and created a community. It is easy to see how she is capable of doing this. She is warm and caring. We visited her house which is next door to the school. She offered me one of her chickens, (I said I had nowhere to keep it) and while I was there some of the school children came over and she gave them cups for water. I was even able to get a ride back to town with her brother in his police bus. I left during recess, and all the children were outside playing on the giant field next to the classrooms. They looked very happy.

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  • John R    Jan 21, 2015

    Thanks for sharing the photo!

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  • Theresia    Jan 21, 2015

    Here is a picture of the Terrian Academy classroom block which we have just started. I hope the picture now comes on.

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  • pentatonicscale    Jan 19, 2015

    That was fast! It shows that we all trust you!
    Greetings from Christian Academy in Japan to Terrian Academy in Kenya! Tell your students hello from my Japanese students!

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    • Theresia    Jan 19, 2015

      Hello Niiza-Shi, We are really grateful. Your picture indicates you like playing music. We hope one day you would come to Kenya and play music with our pupils. They received your Christian Academy students' greetings with joy, and said we pass theirs also. Pass the regards of our pupils to your students.

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  • Theresia    Jan 19, 2015

    Dear Lenders, We are sincerely grateful to have you partnering with us in this journey. You have really made it possible for us to move on. Thank you very much for funding our latest loan. We are still trying to post the latest pictures, but still have a problem. They will be on as soon as this problem is solved. Once again, thanks and GOD BLESS.

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  • Theresia    Jan 18, 2015

    The loan we just completed was used to fix the doors, windows and cement the floors of the our three roomed iron sheet classrooms.

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  • Ian    Jan 18, 2015

    Hi lenders. Theresia did get in touch with me today morning and has confirmed release of payment. It should reflect on her account within a week. She has cleared her full loan arrears.

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  • Ian    Jan 17, 2015

    Hi lenders. I did manage to talk to Theresia today. She is facing some technical challenges with her network. I can confirm it's a general problem which has affected most mobile subscribers using money transfers in the country. She will be catching up on her payments once the issue has been rectified by the service provider.

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  • Theresia    Jan 16, 2015

    Dear Lenders, We, the Terrian Community has been undergoing some financial constraints but things are now opening up. We hope to clear our loan within the next few days. We regret that our repayments has not been as expected, but would like to confirm that our future loans will not have problems.

    We have made some steps in the development of Terrian Academy. We started a more permanent structure we have a vision to develop gradually till completion. A picture showing the new structure and the existing ones is posted below. We will post a design showing our vision structure later when it is completed by a drafts man. After completing our current loan, which we are clearing in a few days, we will still come you for further assistance. You have been wonderful people to us and we trust you still will be. Thanks.

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  • Theresia    Jan 8, 2015

    Dear Zidisha Team, We, the Terrian community wish you are all well as we start another year. We pray for God's blessing to all of you and may this family continue to grow move together in helping make the world a better place to live in. Terrian Academy is also growing to greater heights. We are now in class 7 and the population of pupils is also growing. We will be posting some picture to update you on our progress.

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  • Ian    Dec 9, 2014

    Hi lenders. I wasn't able to get in touch with Theresia but will make further attempts in the next two days and update you all.

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  • Theresia    Aug 22, 2014

    Dear Lenders. You may have noticed that we have not paid our loans as expected in the last two months. Things have become a little tight and we have a cash flow problem. This is not a permanent situation and we expect things to change soon. We however, would like to reschedule the repayment date to 15th September. We may pay some money before then if things change. This change, hopefully, will not change the last payment date for our loan. We will try to repay the default amounts in lumpsum as soon as we get. We hope you understand. We, the Terrian Communittee, wish to re-affirm our commitment to the entire Zidisha community. God bless you all for understanding.

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  • Ian    May 19, 2014

    Theresia confirmed she paid yesterday. She's cleared the pending arrears in full. It should be reflecting on her profile by end of week.

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  • Judith    May 8, 2014

    Dear Theresia, hope everything is going well. I wanted to share the following link to a competition with you: www.schoolenterprisechallen...
    I was a mentor for this in 2013 and I just learned that the competition for 2014 is now open. That made me think of your school. Maybe there is something inspiring on the webpage for you and your school. For example the section Winners 2013 might be interesting, or maybe you have some projects going on and want to take part in it. In any case I thought you might be interested.
    Best wishes, Judith

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    • Theresia    Jun 3, 2014

      Dear Judith, This is a great idea. Thanks for sharing the link. We are registering and will keep you posted on how things are going and if we need any guidance. Thanks once again.

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  • Shemuel    Feb 9, 2014

    You are very welcome.

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  • Theresia    Feb 9, 2014

    Dear Lenders and Zidisha Team. We, the Terrian Community wish to express our heart felt gratitude for the kindness you have shown us. The loan you have just funded will take us a long way in making learning environment more conducive. The picture uploaded shows the state of our most recent classroom structure. We expect to fix the doors, windows and the floor. Once again cheers.

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    • mygueye    Feb 25, 2014

      It's our pleasure. How r the kids doing? How about you? You are so right when you say that sky is the limit, especially when it comes to kids. Thank you for your service.

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  • Theresia    Feb 6, 2014

    Dear Lenders, in the summary of the purpose of the loan we applied for we indicated it for the completion of a "Classroom lock...". It was supposed to be "Classroom Block...". The B was erroneously omitted. Sorry if this brought a misunderstanding.

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  • Theresia    Feb 2, 2014

    Dear Maartje, Things are going well. Our children population is now above 120, and we are now upto class six.The growth of our school is a little slow because of strained resources. Generally there is good academic growth and parents have been very supportive. We will upload some current pictures within the coming week. The sky is the limit.

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