Mail from Ngurunit

Nearly two years after ESHA's trip to Kenya, there are still some meaningful postscripts. Here's one:

The Pike School's communication with Ngurunit Primary School was answered in the fall with 23 pages of letters and captioned photos as well as disposable cameras containing additional shots. The correspondence included a description of the Ngurunit school, typical schedule and routines, favorite studies -- and even a few book recommendations.

The package made its way from northern Kenya to the U.S. in the hands of Kathleen Colson of the BOMA Project, who then shipped it from Vermont to Massachusetts. Muddy Waters received the package and shared its contents in a series of three school assemblies at Pike.

How nice to see this project come full circle -- and three cheers for all the individuals who made it possible!

Claudia

Books for Kenya

We learned recently of a project supporting schools in northern Kenya taking place at Norwood School, one of the five schools Steven Labarakwe visited during the April 2011 program organized by ESHA. We offer  Norwood and Sue Gail Spring our congratulations and best wishes for their next steps. Here are the details:
 
When Steven Labarakwe walked into Norwood School's well-stocked Middle School Library last spring, he commented wistfully that his students have very few textbooks and no other books or libraries available to them. That conversation started the Books for Kenya initiative to get books in the hands of the students of northern Kenya. A couple of years ago, friends opened the first library in northern Tanzania with books donated primarily by the World Bank Book Project. Thanks to a Norwood grant, the Lower School Librarian and I were able to spend a couple of weeks helping set up the Mwika Community Library, so I had seen firsthand the impact that books from WBBP can have on a community. I promised Steven that I would ask if the Project could also help his students.

Sue Gail Spring logs book contributions
(Photo: Young Kimaro)

The World Bank Book Project collects books from schools and libraries around the Washington, DC area and then sorts, boxes, and ships them abroad based on a qualifying system that takes about 3 years to complete. I asked my friends at the WBBP if there was any way to get at least some books to the underserved students of northern Kenya faster than that. The Project agreed to pack about 50 boxes of books for northern Kenya as long as I paid the shipping costs – not insignificant to such a remote area. Thanks to many generous friends and a successful social-hour fundraiser, the funds have now been raised and the 50 boxes of books are being packed. In a couple of weeks, geography, history, mathematics, reference, and other non-fiction books will be on their way.

Steven decided that it would better serve his students to provide some books to several schools rather than to create one formal library. He has selected a teacher in each school to be responsible for the books. While it will take some time for them to reach their destination, in a few months Steven will be able to send us photos of smiling children with books in hand.

Next for Books for Kenya: raise money for Steven to purchase the Kenyan published textbooks that are so critical to prepare students for the all-important national exams. Each textbook costs about $6 U.S. Currently textbooks are shared by several students, but I hope that by the start of the next school year, many more textbooks will be available to the deserving students of northern Kenya.

-- Sue Gail Spring, Librarian, Norwood School

Wangari Maathai Revisited

We received with sadness today the news of the death of Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, author, and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.


Our post of July 2010 reflected on Maathai's book, Unbowed, her work in Kenya, and her global influence on environmental activism.

Claudia

Book image: http://greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=56

Update from Steven Labarakwe

The head teacher in Ngurunit is working well on the photo project with Pike School. The children are working with the disposable cameras and are excited, too. We hope to have a complete package by August.

The famine is also affecting the people here in our village.

Steven

Photo: In Ngurunit, Steven Labarakwe thanks the moran and young elder for performing a traditional Samburu dance for ESHA guests, 8/06/11 (Photo credit: Claudia Daggett)

Online & service learning crossing school, geographic, and cultural boundaries

St. Gregory College Preparatory School in Tuscon, AZ, offers an online course in East African studies for high school students, from St. Gregory and elsewhere, that culminates in a service learning experience based in Naro Moru, north of Nairobi and south of Nanyuki.

After learning about Kenya history, geography, culture, and language while based in their home schools in the U.S., students travel to Kenya as a group and spend 12 days assisting and teaching in a local primary school. This is an interesting model of online and service learning that crosses school, geographic, and cultural boundaries in inspiring ways. Kudos to St. Gregory School and to teacher Fred Roberts!

Readers may enjoy following the East African Studies students' experience described in periodic posts in the Tucson Citizen. Here's the first: Teaching in Kenya: American teens learn the ropes, tucsoncitizen.com, 6/10/11.

Claudia

Photo: Excerpt of National Geographic map of Africa (Claudia Daggett)

From a Sixth Grade Perspective

"On Monday, April 4, 2011, Steven Labarakwe visited The Woods Academy. Steven is a teacher and school superintendent from northern Kenya. He grew up as a nomadic tribesman.

Steven had an amazing start..."

This is a very brief excerpt from Darren Danaie's school news article about the visit of Steven Labarakwe to The Woods Academy, sponsored by ESHA. Read more and enjoy a sixth grader's perspective at www.woodsacademy.org.

Darren Danaie with Mary Worch, Head of School (Photo: The Woods Academy)

Student responses from Green Acres School

Students from Green Acres School in Rockville, MD, had the following to say in response to their time with Kenyan educator Steven Labarakwe:

“It was a unique educational opportunity for us -- especially when he told us specifics about the transportation in his country.” (It took Steven two days to travel from his village to the airport.)

“He was very observant about America and had many ideas about improving Kenya.” (Steven spoke about his country’s need for water, education, teacher training, and infrastructure.)

“People [in the U.S.] don’t know much about his country. His sharing about his life makes me want to be an advocate for Kenya."

Many photos and a description of Steven's April 13 visit to Green Acres are featured in the school photo gallery and the school newsletter, "The Green Line."

Claudia

Photo: Laurel Seid

A Growing Partnership

It was truly a delight to reconnect with good friend, Steven Labarakwe, on his visit to schools in the Washington, DC area. I had the good fortune of going on a school visit with him and watching his transformation from blue jeans and fleece to his native garb. The children were entranced and the visit was a real gift to them.

Before my trip, I asked students in grades 1, 2 and 5 to create some materials that Steven could take back to Kenya to share with students in his schools. The goal was to tell them what it is like to go to school in Andover, MA at The Pike School. They wrote, drew, and took pictures and created a book of materials.

I gave Steven those books and several disposable cameras to take back. He told me he would give them to a principal he respects very much. The students in Ngurunit could learn about us and then create their own presentation of their educational lives to share with us. It is our fondest hope that this will be the start of a wonderful relationship that will benefit all the children involved.

Muddy


Photo: Muddy Waters and Steven Labarakwe
(Photo credit: Claudia Daggett)

Fan Mail from Grade 2, The Woods Academy

Green Acres School Visit

If you are one of those educators who loves the energy and enthusiasm of middle school students, then you probably cannot imagine a finer way to begin the day than with a middle school assembly. How exciting for us to begin our visit at Green Acres School with an opportunity to bring the stories of life with the Samburu to their fifth through eighth grades. After watching Steven begin most of our presentations with a brief traditional dance and chant and listening to the gasps and other expressions of awe and wonderment, I almost could not contain my excitement that the Green Acres teacher and photographer caught him in mid-air.

I think this picture could serve as a metaphor for the day. It stems from the kind of excitement we felt at being in a day-long celebration. From the youngest to the oldest children, the attention and enthusiasm remained palpable throughout. The market proved, yet again, to be an enormous hit with the first grade. We could have dressed up and continued learning about Samburu culture for a very long time. We ended the day with an assembly for the kindergatren through fourth graders which, despite what prevailing wisdom might say, just kept the excitement flowing. One of the teachers remarked to us afterward that she had not seen the students remain so enraptured.

For me, reflecting on the experience of the visits at all of the schools during this last week and a half, the best moments have come as we walk the hallways and sidewalks. Almost without fail, a student will greet Steven, shyly or exuberantly, as if he were the most special person in the world. It becomes clear, in that moment, what an impact the visits have had in the lives of children.

Laurel

Photos:

"Map," Laurel Seid
"Dance," Victor Stekoll
"Hands," Laurel Seid