John and Babby Schwarz, a missionary couple from Minnesota, USA, started KDS (Kinyago Dandora School)
in 1987 as a Nursery School and feeding program in the Kinyago-Dandora slums of Nairobi, Kenya. They sympathized with the desperate situation they saw of hungry children. There was a small piece of land next to the Dandora garbage dump where ACK (Anglican Church of Kenya) was going to put up a church. John Schwarz knew
the late Archbishop Manasses Kuria and through the two, a church building was put up with mud-plastered walls.The church building was then used to house a
Nursery class of children and a small iron sheet structure was erected to act as a kitchen. About 100 needy children from the primary schools in the area came
to join the Nursery class for lunch. By the end of 1989, there were 350 kids, ages 3-6 years, in the Kinyago Dandora Nursery School (KDNS).
Over the years, the Nursery School has expanded and become the Kinyago-Dandora Primary. By this time, John and Babby had already registered a
non-profit making NGO in the US which they called Kenya Children’s Fund (KCF) to raise funds to support this children’s program they had started.
A local Board was formed to oversee the affairs of the school project and was later registered as an NGO in the name of Wezesha Watoto Wa Kenya (WWK).
The mission of Wezesha Watoto Wa Kenya is that it seeks to transform the lives of Kenya’s impoverished
children by raising up servant leaders and providing life’s basic necessities including nutrition, medical care and education in a Christ centered environment.
By the year 1995, John and Babby had already become overwhelmed by the growing Ministry and tried to search for a helping hand to raise fund for
the growing project. They tried two organizations that came in for a little while and left because their areas of operation were not in line with a
project such as KDS. Finally they decided to look for somebody who could step into their shoes and rebuild KCF. Divine connection brought them to
Ginger Palm. Ginger was already familiar with KDS, having lead teams to visit the school, during their ‘Journey of the heart‘trips. So Ginger stepped in,
\in the year 2001 and through her leadership of KCF we were already opening the doors to a secondary school for our Primary school graduates in the year 2006,
which we called Kinyago Dandora Secondary School (KDSS).
Prior to this, all the KDS graduates attended different secondary schools in the country where their fees were paid. The third KDSS Form four class
has just completed their KCSE examinations at the time of writing this article. Last year, 2011, our secondary school managed to produce the coveted
best boy and best girl in our district. The two were awarded the Equity Bank Scholarship. We believe that many good things are yet to happen because
we serve a good God who has brought us this far.
