Service members from Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, a component of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), delivered 1,000 packets of school supplies to children of the Rukuini Primary and Secondary schools in Eldoret, Kenya, January 7, 2010.

Donated by People to People International, the packets were delivered by the U.S. military to a school in need. The Catholic Diocese of Eldoret provided CJTF-HOA service members with a truck to move 100 boxes of school supplies to the schools.

Before the supplies were delivered, each box was opened and inventoried to ensure the correct materials were in each packet. Many Kenyans helped inventory the boxes at The Office of Transition Initiative where the school supplies were stored until being transported to the Rukuini schools.

"With the help from the Kenyans, we were able to get everything readied quickly," said U.S. Army Captain Roxana Pagan, the officer in charge of the Civil Affairs team in Eldoret deployed from CJTF-HOA.

According to Pagan, the school serves as an example for future tribal cooperation.

"Rukuini is going to be the foundation for the peace serving reconciliation that we are doing in the area and it's going to be an integrated school," said Pagan. "And from the ceremony yesterday, you can see the community really wants to be involved."

In 2007, the original schools were burned down during post election violence and categorized as one of the 30 "totally destroyed" by the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Education. CJTF-HOA contracted a local construction company to rebuild the structures of the school.

"The Rukuini schools were the primary choice for total reconstruction as that is the site where the most progress in peace and reconciliation efforts had taken place by the time the first civil affairs team arrived in country in 2008," said Pagan. "The reconstruction process began when Captain Paul Deis, the first civil affairs team leader assigned to the area after the violence, visited the site on June 23, 2008. Additionally these two schools were selected for reconstruction by the Defense, Development, and Diplomacy, or 3D coordination meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi."

The Rukuini Primary and Secondary schools provide a place of education for more than 1,000 students. The schools take in students from three different tribes.

Members of the school board expressed their sincere gratitude in speeches throughout a ceremony held prior to the delivering of the school supplies.

"I would like to thank the U.S. Military and the U.S. government for these school supplies," said Kiberia Maigua, Rukuini Primary School head teacher. "You have proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that you are a friend to Kenya."