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The Church Army Academy is located on Jogoo Road, a major road linking Nairobi city with its northern suburbs and northern Kenya. Jogoo Road is a busy dual-carriageway with a lot of human activity. |
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| Informal traders selling (usually) cheap, second-hand merchandise decorate the sides of the road, finding a ready market in the heavily-populated neighbouring residential estates of Jericho, Maringo, Posta, Kaloleni and Makongeni. |
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| Church Army Academy is in the compound of Church Army Africa (CAA), which sits almost exactly opposite St Stephen’s Anglican Church on Jogoo Road. The two institutions share a common Anglican origin. Originally, many of the residents of the neighbouring estates worked with government corporations, including the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation and Kenya Railways, which gave the estates some of their informal names like Posta. |
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A number of children who attend Church Army Academy come from these estates, which are no longer populated by well-to do lower-middle class families. |
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| The government corporations having fallen on hard times decades past, the population that dwells in this side of Nairobi city is mostly poor. This explains why many children at the Academy are on the Bursary Fund, set up to help poor children pay school fees. |
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| To access Church Army Academy, one would therefore approach from town, turning into the school just after the round-about linking the part of Nairobi called Eastleigh with Jogoo Road. Alternatively, one could approach from the side of Buru Buru, Donholm and Makadara estates or even Jomo Kenyatta International Airport through Jogoo Road as though on the way to the city centre. One would pass the Likoni Road-Jogoo Road round-about, negotiate the next round-about, which is Eastleigh-Jogoo Road round-about, and turn back 180 degrees to enter the Church Army Academy as if from town. |
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The Church Army Africa compound, where the Academy is situated, is surrounded by a fairly high concrete perimeter fence. This is to protect the compound from unlawful intrusion from outside. |
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| Church Army Academy is therefore easily accessible without compromising the privacy, security and freedom of the students and members of staff to pursue academics. |
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| The foundation stone of Church Army Academy was laid on November 25, 1972 by the then Kenyan cabinet Minister for Health Mr Mwai Kibaki, the current president of Kenya. The school was officially opened in 1973 by the Anglican bishop of Mt Kenya Diocese, the Rev Obadiah Kariuki with the aim to provide Christian education to and inculcate Christian principles in little children. In the years ahead this would help them be productive and useful members of the society. |
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| While there is not much about the Academy’s past to write home about as it were, a new chapter in its history has just been opened. The Head Teacher Mr Alex Kagunda says the new history involves an all-out pursuit of academic excellence and evident cast of godly character in the lives of the children. That vision awaits an appointed time before it can be realised. In the meanwhile, it is here below crystallised. |
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The vision of Church Army Academy is to nurture and produce godly leaders who will transform the society throughout Africa. |
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| The Academy’s mission is to provide holistic, all-encompassing education that develops children academically, spiritually, socially and physically. |
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| The Headmaster Mr Kagunda says the vision has multiple components in his mind. i) A model Christian school; ii) a centre of academic excellence; iii) an institution able to offer bursaries on merit and sees children come in and move on to “breast the tape” of life without any disruptions resulting from lack of resources. “I dream of leaders of tomorrow’s society proudly telling the world, ‘I went to school at the Church Army Academy.’ |
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| Knowing by observation the truthfulness of the adage that “to educate men without God is to make them but clever devils,” Church Army Academy is committed to producing men and women, who, conscious of a Higher Law than what is commonly found in the Constitutions of nations, seek to serve not themselves but the society. People who ask everyday, in the words attributed to JF Kennedy, “Not ‘What has my country done for me today?’ but ‘What have I done for my country today?’ ” |
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