Where the name comes from
In the autumn of 2018, after two months at Irene School in Maralal, Mattia is about to return to Italy. The school's students see him off, clapping their hands to imitate the sound of an approaching storm. They tell him: "For us, you were like rain and storm — a blessing." It's their gesture, not ours: it's the students who name that experience, and who — without meaning to — give us a name.
That name — STORM, STudy to transfORM — becomes official on 15 March 2019, when the association is founded in Italy. But the project we support was never our idea: it's the vision of Father Peter Musau, rector of Irene School, and of the community that lives that school every day — from its teachers to its students, like Martha, today president of the student body.
STORM doesn't bring solutions from Italy: it supports, with funding and skills, a project that already existed before us and that keeps being led by the people who live it — Peter, his staff, and the students who choose, every day, to stay, study, and carry that school forward.
Storm's Milestones
Mattia spends two months at Irene School in Maralal — a boarding school for girls run by Father Peter Musau 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 on 15 March 2019 by Mattia together with Britta, Francesca, Flavio, Carlo, Umberto Gentiloni and Enrico Tocci. ONLUS recognition follows in October after months of paperwork. In the meantime, the first collaboration begins: an informal school of Italian and math for refugees in Rome, with Baobab Experience.
A summer basketball camp begins alongside the student sponsorship project.
We visit the Kakuma refugee camp (200,000 people, the second-largest in the world) for the first time. Inside, only 6% of eligible students reach secondary school. We launch a pioneering project: sponsoring the transfer of students to Irene School in Maralal. Four students — Marna, Kachiri, Kapilu and Nyayang' — are the first to arrive.
All activities move online, and teaching in Kenya continues through WhatsApp.
A summer camp is organized at Lake Turkana, alongside the development of new projects at Irene School.
An online fundraising campaign supports the sponsorship of new students.
Funding from Caritas makes it possible to purchase and install solar panels.
The first group of 5 students from Kakuma Refugee Camp completes the final exams at Irene School.
Nielimishe is founded as a registered foundation in Kenya to begin work on building a school.
Ten hectares of land are purchased through Nielimishe for the construction of the school complex.
A visit to students at university and a discussion of the plans for building the school complex.