A Kisii school head teacher has appealed for material and financial support from to enable them rebuild a school that was reduced to ashes on Sunday evening.
The school, King David Liberty Academy is at Gekomu in Kisii Central Ward, Nyaribari Chache Constituency.
Speaking to the press on Monday morning, Pastor Jared Nyareru, who is also the proprietor of school said they lost property worth Sh4 million and appealed for support to enable them reinstate the school's status for pupils to resume learning.
He said a pupil from the school informed him of the happening last night.
“The school was set ablaze at around 7pm. I was called by a pupil to tell me of the incident and I ran there and found the fire was small before it spread and razed everything in the school. We lost stationeries, 14 classrooms, a resource room, offices, my motorbike and store with cereals in the inferno. We appeal for kindhearted people to give us material and financial support to enable us resume learning,” appealed the school head.
Pastor Nyareru linked the incident to the existing dispute adding that he supports 200 pupils out of the 450 who hail from vulnerable backgrounds.
“We have no problem with the owner of the land, John Okari, because according to the lease agreement, we have till the year 2024 before we bargain again. Its his brothers who are jealousy of us and are the one who are pushing for our vacation. Recently, they spread leaflets warning us against continuing with our operations in their brother’s land, but we settled this in the office of the chief,” he said.
He said the fire was an enormous blow to the community and parents whose children are enrolled in the school which has a nursery and goes to class seven.
Pastor Nyareru said the situation will normalize and pupils will resume studies as soon as they complete rebuilding.
At the same time, parents at the school claim that the school was set ablaze by arsonists who are well known.
“We are disturbed because this is our school that has helped our children so much. We are aware of the wrangles that have been going on but burning the school could not be the solution,” said Tiberius Mogaka, a parent at the school.
“We want a legal action to be taken to those behind the incident because we have lost property worthy millions, and this has affected the normal learning of the school,” Lydia Mose, another parent said.
Parents, teachers and pupils were left in darkness with the school management pleading for tolerance from parents hoping to resume normal learning.