First things first, please tell us your name and role at your charity.
Chris Orman, Founder and Trustee of The Bouncing Ball Trust
Which causes does the Bouncing Ball Trust support?
We are a UK registered Charity delivering educational projects to communities in Kenya.
And what sort of work does the Bouncing Ball Trust do?
We are currently working in partnership with the rural Maasai community of Bulati in Kajiado County on exciting projects to develop their primary school and to improve the lives of the community. These projects include the Naretisho Girls' Project (menstrual health and support), child sponsorship programme, community education classes, school feeding programme and repairing the community's water borehole.
Where is it based? Is this where you do most of your work?
We are based near Bristol but have Trustees across the UK. We deliver projects in Kenya.
What sort of things do you use donations for?
We’ve used donations to develop a primary school, building a new toilet block and kitchen. We are also planning to complete the classroom and office building that was left partially completed by a South Korean NGO.
What have you worked on that you're most proud of?
Being able to transform 17 children’s lives through our Child Sponsorship Programme. The Programme provided funding enabling them to buy uniforms and stationery, pay school fees and expenses and contribute toward the expenses of our Projects Coordinator in Kenya, who provide a mentoring role to these children and their families.
When I visited the community in October 2021, I met some of their children and their parents and their enthusiasm for education is inspiring.
What are the biggest challenges still to overcome?
The community has a water borehole that has been out of action for over 7 years. Unfortunately the Kenyan organisation who originally constructed the water borehole and installed the pumping equipment have refused to come and investigate the issue.
Although we are an educational charity, we have an interest as the borehole pipes water to our school as well as the community. The challenge is to find a company willing to undertake the investigatory work and find funding to undertake the required repair work.
What have you and your charity got planned for the next 12 months?
We will be completing the Olkeju Bulati Primary School Development Project and develop the Naretisho Girls Project. This provides local teenage Maasai girls with menstrual education and support, enabling more girls to take control of their lives and return or continue their education.
Other than donating, what’s the one thing people can do to support your charity and its mission?
We urgently need fundraising volunteers across the UK to run local fundraising events e.g. sponsored events etc. We have a Trustee whose primary responsibility is Volunteer Management and she will be the main Point of Contact.
We also need people to follow our social media and like/share/retweet our posts to enable us to maximise our audience, hopefully turning “Posts into Pounds”. We have had some success in this area.
If you’d like to support Bouncing Ball Trust, please download the Toucan app.
