Providing Education in Kenya
SEEDO Volunteer Cindy Weijia Yang
“I was honored to be able to do two small but significant things in Kenya: participate in the teaching of students at a local orphanage and install temporary lighting for people in a Maasai tribal village to reduce human-animal conflict. Meanwhile, before we left, we were fortunate enough to visit the UN department in Kenya and benefit from a lecture on Sustainable Development Goal 4 - Quality Education.
”Four other students and l prepared all the course content and materials the day before and headed to the school full of anticipation and nervousness. Upon arrival at the school, we were warmly greeted by the principal, Mr. Moses, who took us to his office and began to make introductions. We were struck by the principal's great vision: to build this school to educate nearly 5,000 students and to give them the qualifications to go to college and the opportunity to follow their dreams. It was a chance for orphans to be reborn. Yet, heartbreakingly, these children often have unspeakably painful experiences and childhoods. For many of them, poverty or violence has become the norm.
”It was with heavy emotion that we left the office and walked to the campus, but the positive, happy, and energetic nature of the students stood in stark contrast to the heaviness of these experiences. Afterwards, as planned, the other four students and l split into three groups to teach the children origami, torn paper, and three-dimensional drawing in multi-material media. Since l was alone in one group, l had to teach alone and interact with the other five local students, while the other groups had six students and two teachers. During the process, l taught the students how to use paper with different colored pencils to draw symmetrical shapes and how to tear the paper to create a 3-D effect at the end of the drawing. Some students whose English was not as good were translated by local students who volunteered to assist the teacher.
”The teaching lasted from the morning until the afternoon, during which time we shared our lives with each other, took pictures with the children, and shared with them what we had seen in China. Many of the children were very interested in our pets, and the school had two dogs, and a litter of puppies, to bring companionship and fun into their lives. The education here is like a normal school, but the students treat each other like family and even though we were only there for a very short time, we settled in in no time at all. After that, we watched the students perform singing, poetry, acrobatics, dancing, and so forth.
”In the following days, l was impressed by all the experiences, not only by the perseverance and persistence of the principal, but also by the hard work and love of the teachers, and the hard work and dreams of the students. The day before we left Kenya, after visiting the United Nations in Kenya, we listened to lectures on quality education and the importance of education, and gave speeches and opinions based on our experiences. Even though our thoughts differed in detail, we all shared the same common wish for the future of the students we taught and engraved this experience in our minds.”