Secondary School Sponsorship
In the early part of this decade the Kenya government determined to raise education to a national focus, dedicated to provide an opportunity for each child, in every province, to receive an education at the primary levels.
Primary schools would be evaluated and receive monies to continue educating the youth. The practical issue is that the government does not have enough money to fund every school at the levels necessary to provide the teacher’s salaries, the necessary text books, the monies for construction of classrooms and teaching materials required for optimum success. As in any country there are schools which receive greater levels of financial support than others. In Kenya it seems the rural area schools, those that provide the education for the villages, are the least supported. This is, I am sure, because the families which send their children to schools in the urban areas have better income levels and are more able to subsidize the government funds through tuition.
In any event education at a level higher than the 8th grade (equivalent for America) is dependant first on the successful completion of the National Test taken in November of each year. Those students who have gained the knowledge to pass this test are allowed to continue on to Secondary School, (for America we would call this High School.) A second requirement is school fees. While admittance to Secondary is first determined by test scores the child must also be able to pay the school fees. Unless the child scores in the top 2 or 3 percent they most likely will not receive any government support to finish school.
It is understandable that the students with the highest scores regularly come from the schools in the higher population areas and those that serve the educated population. This then is the educational mountain that each child of the rural village must be willing to climb. The path from illiteracy and poverty to self sufficiency is parallel to this mountain-scaling path of education. This is also the reason we find ourselves making every effort to support those children and families that are able to pass the test and gain entrance into Secondary School, by providing school fee assistance through GAD Kenya.
An average year of secondary school is available to students at the cost of $300.00 to $500.00 per year. Boarding schools, who's entry fees are the most expensive, have the highest success rate for students passing the exam to qualify for University.
Each year in December the GAD Kenya leadership receives requests for funding from the students who have been successful in their test scores. Each year GAD Kenya requests funds to make it possible that the most possible of these children, who work hard towards this goal, will find the door to an educated future open. If there is a single most important effort which we pursue and work towards it is this education of the young. The leadership and a continually growing percentage of families in the village understand that the road to a better future is paved in the education of their children. Not just primary, but secondary. And yes, even University.
VIDEO - The Importance of Education
Transportation for the Sick & Elderly
For the poor in rural Kenya to become sick or injured is to suffer greatly or to die. The problem is lack of transportation. For the rural poor the wheel Barrel is the vehicle of necessity, it is the only item which has wheel in most cases. So often in the past when illness or injury has struck, the outcome is so very bleak.
One of the founding items of our interaction was due to the lack of transportation for the injured or ill. This is also a major factor in the high rate of death in birth related deaths of women.
So it is not surprising that when a vehicle becomes available to the village that it is immediately put into service in a number of ways.
Today, thanks to the generosity of a supporter lives are being saved, service is being provided and vital transportation of necessary foods is possible at reduced costs.
All these have been managed and maintained by the village leadership.
Adult Education
To teach adults new skills prepares them for the opportunities to come. This is the same in the village of Rionchogu. The difference here may be that the traditions and past practices of the culture do not necessarily support such activity.
Adult education becomes more than teaching a skill, it is teaching the ideas of opportunity and cutting across the years of an ingrained belief that there is no hope and no future. The current expectations of the majority are that to improve one’s income leads to anti-social behavior or practices which harm the family. This social constitution of the village must be replaced with the idea and faith that education opens the door for adults just as it does for the young. This is foreign to the thinking of most of the village adults and is often a daunting task for the Staff of GAD Kenya.
Where making alcohol or selling one’s self into prostitution was possibly the only hope to go beyond farming for day to day subsistence, now along with micro franchise opportunities, adult education holds the key to a different future.
We know this, the village adults are learning. GAD Kenya is currently sponsoring five adults in training that will bring them opportunity. A teacher, a mechanic, a professional driver, and two tailors are currently receiving schooling that will allow them a better future. Each one of these men and women carry an additional goal. That is to use their new skills to help the village as well as their families. They do go hand in hand.
Without a doubt, there is more to changing traditions and a past of illiteracy and poverty, than providing food and water.
VIDEO - The Importance of Education
Cows
VIDEO - The Cow Project
The Cow Project brings cows to families in Rionchogu. Not only do the cows provide milk for the families, but often times the excess can be sold at market to provide an income for other necessities. Then the cows provide calves which are then donated to another family. This exponentially self propagating project begins with the addition of one cow and grows to accommodate the needs of many.
Safe Latrines
VIDEO - Safe Latrines
Before GADL, the people of Rionchogu were forced to squat on brittle branches, stick and leaves in order to complete the simple task of using their outhouse style latrines. Often times the occupants would fall through in to the pit of waste injuring themselves, Occasionally small children, the handicapped, or the elderly would fall to their deaths. GAD Kenya's "Safe Latrine Project" provided instructions and supplies to build sturdy cement slabs on which to build the privacy shelter. Funds donated to GADL go directly to projects like these.
Nutrition
VIDEO - Helen Moseti on Nutrition
Helen Moseti discusses the partnership between GADL and the Government in Kenya to teach and establish nutritional guidelines. This includes the planting of specific crops that will yield proper sustenance and balance in the diets of the people of this impoverished region as well as providing natural medicines readily found in certain crops. Again education and information play a key role in changing the lives of many.
HIV Education
What does cultural change look like?
If you stand back and look at the current life and hope for the village of Rionchogu and surrounding villages a few issues stand out. While we focus on the people first and their Joy, the issues are still very real and very much a great impact on any hope for future.
We believe that for a people to change THEY must identify that the change is more necessary than the cost of change and that they, the residents and families directly involved, have at their front leadership that shares their history and their culture. How easy is it for outsiders to look at others and decide what is best and how change should best be
initiated, for this better future?
In the village of Rionchogu and all this area HIV is a major issue. Without a doubt medication and other safe sex practices would help, all these take education and an internal willingness to change. However with the education comes a new knowledge of how their past cultural activities have allowed this disease to ravage their families, and how to stop the inevitable from destroying them all.
This internal roadmap for change, in the rural environment, is intimately tied to the willingness to follow leadership that is trusted. Leadership that has demonstrated a willingness to stand in the daily life as lived and has personally touched those affected and have become a part of the lives, again with a similar history and deep relationships.
This is possibly the most powerful potential of local leadership, leadership that is dedicated to a new future and a new hope. Hope for health, hope for education, hope for a better economy. It is all part of one and as we have witnessed is a day by day, crises by crises, step by step processes, accomplished by a group of people who have demonstrated the dedication and love for one another. The willingness to help others, from their own, begins the willingness and desire to take the hard steps to change.
Investing in Change
The poetry performed by the students in 'The Hope that Changed it All' and "Metamorphosis" was written in the village by local persons connected to the effort. They were first performed for us during our April 2009 visit.
VIDEO - Student McCloud presenting the poem, "The Hope That Changed It All"
McCloud presenting the poem, "The Hope That Changed It All". He is one of the children in the Rionchogu village area who attend's Neema Nuru Academy. McCloud is a child at risk. Both of his parents have died (HIV -AIDS) and so he was living with his elderly grandmother who is unable to care for him. A uncle or aunt had refused to care for him and so his grandmother felt she had no choice but to SELL him. When this information came to the GAD Kenya leadership they knew they had to bring McCloud into the circle of supported children and so told his grandmother that they would provide the necessary support for him to stay with her and remain in school.
VIDEO - Metamorphosis - Two Students Share a Poem
Metamorphosis - Change is happening in the village of Rionchogu, Kenya through the work of Go and Do Likewise and GAD Kenya. Two of the sponsored students share a poem about the changes going on.
Student Mentoring
Mentoring as a way of giving back!
Ownership is a powerful ingredient in opportunity and in servant hood. We have seen this demonstration among the sponsored students and the Vocational students.
They all seem to have an internal sense of purpose and see themselves as part of the solution. This of course is the perfect means by which we, ourselves, imagine the growth and continued opportunity for others. An example is the project, planned and launched by the current students attending higher education on sponsorship from Go and Do Likewise.
These students have begun a process whereby they give of their time to mentor and tutor students in lower grades to help them best prepare for the National Test which will determine if they can continue their education. It is a demonstration also of the gratitude they have for the opportunity and the sense of responsibility back to the origin of their future which is the village itself. There is no funding required for the mentoring. There is however a great need to provide a venue for this activity. What better place than a Library to house both a greater and more inclusive collection of reading materials but also a safe place with available light for this effort to be most successful for the villagers.
Teaching Parents to Support Education
In the movie “Out of Africa” there is a scene where the lead character is asking the chief of the local tribe to allow for children to be educated. The chief drew a line on the post and said no child who was taller than that line could be educated. When the chief left the question was asked of a local tribal member why the chief had drawn that line. The answer was, ‘if the child is shorter than the line he will not be grown before the chief dies”. So is the fear of education of those who are not so blessed.
After returning from Kenya in April of 2008 our main focus was on the education of the students who had passed the national test and were eligible for Secondary school. That is High School for our reference. While this seems a very normal process and needs only funding to succeed, that is not the case.
While the very young are educated through 7th or 8th grade with little affect on the family's daily work load, a young adult seeking education brings a pressure on the others to take on those household duties. Planting, caring for the crops, harvesting and marketing may be a few. Even more is the pressure on the family budget to provide some kind of light for reading or study as the huts are very dark and poorly lighted. There is no electricity so all reading must be done in the day time or a kerosene lamp is used. This lamp is of very poor quality, providing low light and unhealthy fumes from the burning of the kerosene fuel.
Add to this the fact that the kerosene may well require 20% of the family's monthly budget and you can begin to sense the new pressure families with children wanting to secure an education above primary might face.
Now for the big ticket; while primary education is determined to be at no cost to everyone the rural poor receive significantly less funding, lower paid teachers, fewer books and supplies and basically less of a chance to go past primary. At the end of each school year a test is given to determine the score of any student. This test is administered on a nationwide basis and scores are standard regardless of your place of primary education. To say the deck is stacked against the rural poor is an understatement.
All of these factors can add up to a large obstacle to overcome. To in fact overcome this, the family must be completely committed to the education of their children and the children must be committed to the long term goals of the family or as a pro-active participant in the community.
The leadership of GAD Kenya determined that there needed to be an intermediary for the discussion which had to take place between the students and the parents as to the difficulties they face as a family in this new opportunity called education. In order to facilitate this in the first year, the GAD Kenya board held a parent/student seminar designed to identify the issues each faced and help determine priorities and accountability for the best result for the families.
In July of 2008 I attended a gathering at which I met an education administrator from a nearby city. We spoke of the issues of education for the poor and rural. I shared the plan of the GAD Kenya leadership to intervene. The comment I received brought confirmation and light to the reality of this circumstance. My new acquaintance stated that the school district which she worked for has just determined that they need to make a special effort to teach the parents of immigrant students how to be parents of children in this society.
The challenges of changing cultural traditions and practices are only able to be overcome with effort and awareness and dedication. With enlightenment through leadership, the children and the parents learn to re-prioritize their budgets, time, and resources. Accountability and commitment to a new idea takes courage and belief. So it is with this idea of teaching parents how to be parents of children who are being educated.
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GAD Kenya, or Go And Do Kenya, is a program GADL has instigated to lift up the people of Rionchogu. This program consists of a set of structural projects that focus on basic human needs and integrating social participation and ownership in to the formula. The difference between our charitable acts, and those of most other organizations designed to offer relief to the poor and misfortunate, is our focus on citizen participation. It is a well known fact that one cannot not take pride without ownership of a thing. If not invested in the act, there will be no self worth in the matter and thus forgotten as soon as the thing is used up. Of course the handicapped, elderly, and children are always tended to. But those with hands, legs, backs, and/or suggestions must join the effort to change the lot of this place or not reap the benefit thereafter.