Supporting our nearby schools

Partakilat Primary School sits in the heart of the Siria Escarpment of the Great Rift Valley, a few kilometres from the end of Angama Mara’s airfield, and educates children from pre-primary to Grade 7. In January 2020, 186 pupils were enrolled in the new year, comprising 96 boys and 90 girls.

Being the closest primary school to the lodge, and greatly lacking in infrastructure and resources, the Angama Foundation focuses on projects motivated by the school board as a priority. Funding is raised through nightly contribution to the Foundation that Angama Mara guests make when staying at Angama Mara.

Since its launch in 2015, the Angama Foundation has built three classrooms, student ablution facilities as well as teachers’ accommodation and ablution facilities at Partakilat. The Foundation has donated 150 pairs of Shoes that Grow, over 100 desks, 300 backpacks filled with over $8,000 worth of stationery and five 10,000-litre capacity water-tanks.

The Foundation has also been fortunate enough to partner additional projects at Partakilat with guests and other NGO’s wanting to make a difference in the communities that surround the lodge. One of the first projects was building two Early Childhood Development classrooms with the Nobelity Project for pre-primary children attending the school. Story Moja, a Kenyan publishing company, was also generously donated bookshelves and books for the pupils, while the Mara Conservancy constructed a dam to supply water to the school.

As clean drinking water is critical in remote parts of Africa, one of Angama Mara’s young guests, before her safari to the Mara celebrating her bat Mitzvah, crowd-funded in order to supply Partakilat Primary School with two more 10,000-litre capacity water tanks as well as two Life Straw Filters.

The next project the Angama Foundation has approved for Partakilat Primary School, which will be completed in 2020, is to fence the school grounds, so that the children are completely safe from wildlife while at school.