A story that began with a friendship
STORM grew from the friendship between Mattia and Peter, and from listening to the needs of the school community in Maralal. Friends and supporters in Italy brought together their time, skills and resources around a shared goal: making quality education more accessible to students in northern Kenya, particularly girls from disadvantaged backgrounds.
On 15 March 2019, STORM was formally recognised as an Italian non-profit organisation. Since then, it has grown to include around 15 volunteers. We work with our partners in Kenya to support students and develop new educational projects, guided by priorities identified by the people who know and live in the area.
Our logo reflects this vision: a tree growing from the pages of an open book. It represents education rooted in the culture and needs of the community, creating opportunities for both individual and collective growth.
READ THE DEED OF INCORPORATIONStorm's Milestones
Mattia spends two months at Irene School in Maralal, a boarding school for girls run by Father Peter that takes in girls from poor families and those fleeing early marriage and female genital mutilation in the Samburu, Pokot and Turkana communities. He teaches physics, coaches the basketball team, and listens to Peter's vision: open schools for those who have never had the chance.
A Christmas fundraiser is organized in Rome to support the students of Irene School.
STORM Project, STudy to transfORM, is founded by Mattia, Britta, Francesca, Flavio, Carlo, Umberto and Enrico. Recognition as an ONLUS follows in October of the same year, after a long administrative approval process. From the very first months, the association turns ideas into concrete activities: it builds its own website and prints its first t-shirts, presents the project in schools, and launches, with Baobab Experience, an informal school of Italian and math for refugees in Rome.
Mattia returns to Maralal together with Flavio and Francesca, who have joined STORM's board. For the association, this is a turning point: getting to know the school, the students, the area and the people we work with firsthand becomes part of how we operate. During the stay we run a summer basketball camp, take the team to a tournament, and discuss with Peter the possible projects to support the students.
Visiting the Kakuma refugee camp confronts us with extremely limited access to secondary school: at the time, only 6% of eligible students were able to continue their education. This is how a project is born to let some students move to Irene School in Maralal to continue their education. The first four students begin a journey that connects young people of different nationalities from Kakuma and Samburu County, creating opportunities for meeting, learning and mutual growth.
The pandemic brings in-person activities to a halt and forces schools to close. It is a difficult period that requires us to rethink quickly how we work. Our Italian and mathematics classes in Rome move online. In Kenya, we support the students and the school so that learning can continue through WhatsApp. Distance changes the tools we use, but it does not interrupt the relationships built over the previous years.
Faced with the difficulties caused by school closures, STORM organizes its first fundraising campaign entirely online. Even from a distance, our network mobilizes to support the continuity of educational paths and give new students the chance to continue their studies.
After a year of remote activities, we finally return to Maralal and reconnect with the students in person. The support programme has grown and now involves 16 students from Kakuma. During the school holidays we organize an excursion to Lake Turkana for them: a chance to discover a new part of Kenya, rest after a demanding term, and strengthen the group.
STORM secures funding from Caritas and coordinates the purchase and installation of solar panels at Irene School. The project gives the school a more stable source of electricity, improving learning environments and letting students study in the evening hours too.
The first five students supported by STORM from Kakuma Refugee Camp complete their final secondary school exams at Irene School. It's an important milestone for the programme launched in 2019: the results achieved allow several students to apply to university and continue their education.
Nielimishe Foundation is founded and registered in Kenya, a fully Kenyan organization created to develop new educational projects and begin the journey towards building a school together with STORM. Its first director is Martha, a former Irene School student: an important step towards a partnership grounded in local leadership and direct knowledge of the area.
Nielimishe purchases 11 hectares of land for the ILEPU School Complex project. It's the first concrete step towards creating an educational complex that, according to the plan, will support students from nursery school all the way through secondary school.
We return to Kakuma to meet the students already supported by the programme, some of whom are now continuing their studies at university, and to meet the new students. We also meet their families, gather updates on the milestones reached, and discuss with each of them their aspirations, career prospects and next steps.
We receive confirmation of our registration with RUNTS: from this moment, the association takes the name STORM Project ETS. Along with the new status comes a new logo, designed to give the project new energy for its next phase of growth.
Paolo, the first external volunteer welcomed in this new phase, spends time between Maralal and South Horr. He helps with basketball training and gets to know STORM and Nielimishe's work firsthand. His experience becomes an opportunity for both organizations to learn how to develop volunteering paths that are responsible, useful and sustainable.