Global Classroom Highlights
Submitted by Trudy White
April 14, 2006
Now that the dust has had a chance to settle, I’ve been looking at pictures and thinking back over the three weeks I spent in Kenya with the Global Classroom teacher team. It would be impossible to describe all of the highlights of our visit, but I will try to share a few. Our welcome to Kenya was warm and gentle as we visited the farm of an old friend, Rhoda Ole Sein, and her family. On their farm we saw our first Kenyan wildlife – zebras, gazelles, and even a giraffe - grazing alongside the family’s cattle and sheep. We also got our first glimpse the devastating effects that two years of drought has had upon the farmers and animals of Kenya. We would see and hear much more about this in the days to follow.
We spent our first week in Mukurwe-ini, where our hosts were the members and staff of the Wakulima Dairy. We toured the Dairy, the Sacco, a local health clinic, a coffee farmers cooperative, the market, farms, and 10 schools! We had several very candid discussions with Kenyan teachers who welcome as colleagues and shared their challenges and successes with us. We also billeted one night with local families and we were welcomed everywhere we went. A highlight for me was seeing how proud everyone was of the new Wakulima Dairy facility and hearing about how far they have come and how much of a difference this project has made throughout the community. Before leaving Mukurwe-ini, we hosted a welcome luncheon for the pre-service teachers who were arriving just the day before we moved on. Even in that brief overlap, we felt very confident they were well on their way to an amazing teaching/learning experience.
From Mukurwe-ini, we traveled to Meru. We were welcomed with dancing and singing by the Muchui Women’s Group members. We saw the water catchment tanks and tree nurseries sponsored by FHF and individual Islanders. Lauren Gill- O’Brien was delighted to find herself at a shamba boasting the tank sponsored by her own Vernon River Millview 4-H Club. The women also thanked us many times over for the food supplies and seeds provided by the FHF agriculture team in February and to which we added our own donation of more bean seeds. However, with predictions that the rains will be late and sparse again this year, it was hard not to wonder and worry about how these wonderful people are going to fare. Before leaving Meru, we also visited a local primary school, St. Lucy’s School for the Blind, and St. Theresa’s Maternity Cottage Hospital.
Our next stop was Kericho, in Kenya’s tea growing highlands, where we visited a tea farm, a tea packing plant, and 3 more schools! Even in this seemingly lush region of the country the drought has reduced tea yields and everyone is feeling the effects.
Then, we moved on to Kisumu, situated on Lake Victoria. In the Bondo area, we visited a CIDA- sponsored micro-finance project which is helping fishermen to find alternatives in the face of a collapsing fishery. We also visited the Millennium Demonstration Village project at Sauri, headed by Columbia University’s Earth Institute. This ambitious project aims to demonstrate that sustainable development is possible and that the Millennium goals are, indeed, attainable. Agriculture, health, water, education, sanitation, and infrastructure are all being addressed through a partnership approach involving the community, government, other NGO’s and the Demonstration Village Project. Only a year and a half into the project, the lessons learned at Sauri are already being applied and adapted to12 other villages in different agri-systems throughout Africa. And in Sauri, the project is now being scaled up ten-fold, to a district level.
Our final destination was Nakuru, where we visited a home for street kids called the Child Discovery Centre. Although this project was just started in 2002, the Center is now caring for more than 140 children. Last, but not least, we visited the Lake Nakuru National Park where we added lions, a leopard, a jackal, and black and white rhinos to our now long list of wildlife sightings!
Needless to say, we were very busy but we loved every minute of it! We are now anxiously looking forward to the return of the pre-service teachers in order to hear more about their experiences of teaching and working in the Mukurwe-ini community. Over the next weeks and months, we will also be putting all we’ve seen and learned into lesson formats for Island school children.
All in all, this was a very special journey for me. I was able to visit some old friends like Rhoda, Shaad, and Gerald, and I made many new friends. I felt very privileged to be seeing the projects and meeting the people I had heard so much about over the years of my involvement with FHF. I would like to thank FHF’s Board and the GCI Management Committee for giving me this opportunity and all of the folks in Kenya who worked so hard to make our visit successful. I will always remember it.
April 14, 2006
Now that the dust has had a chance to settle, I’ve been looking at pictures and thinking back over the three weeks I spent in Kenya with the Global Classroom teacher team. It would be impossible to describe all of the highlights of our visit, but I will try to share a few. Our welcome to Kenya was warm and gentle as we visited the farm of an old friend, Rhoda Ole Sein, and her family. On their farm we saw our first Kenyan wildlife – zebras, gazelles, and even a giraffe - grazing alongside the family’s cattle and sheep. We also got our first glimpse the devastating effects that two years of drought has had upon the farmers and animals of Kenya. We would see and hear much more about this in the days to follow.
We spent our first week in Mukurwe-ini, where our hosts were the members and staff of the Wakulima Dairy. We toured the Dairy, the Sacco, a local health clinic, a coffee farmers cooperative, the market, farms, and 10 schools! We had several very candid discussions with Kenyan teachers who welcome as colleagues and shared their challenges and successes with us. We also billeted one night with local families and we were welcomed everywhere we went. A highlight for me was seeing how proud everyone was of the new Wakulima Dairy facility and hearing about how far they have come and how much of a difference this project has made throughout the community. Before leaving Mukurwe-ini, we hosted a welcome luncheon for the pre-service teachers who were arriving just the day before we moved on. Even in that brief overlap, we felt very confident they were well on their way to an amazing teaching/learning experience.
From Mukurwe-ini, we traveled to Meru. We were welcomed with dancing and singing by the Muchui Women’s Group members. We saw the water catchment tanks and tree nurseries sponsored by FHF and individual Islanders. Lauren Gill- O’Brien was delighted to find herself at a shamba boasting the tank sponsored by her own Vernon River Millview 4-H Club. The women also thanked us many times over for the food supplies and seeds provided by the FHF agriculture team in February and to which we added our own donation of more bean seeds. However, with predictions that the rains will be late and sparse again this year, it was hard not to wonder and worry about how these wonderful people are going to fare. Before leaving Meru, we also visited a local primary school, St. Lucy’s School for the Blind, and St. Theresa’s Maternity Cottage Hospital.
Our next stop was Kericho, in Kenya’s tea growing highlands, where we visited a tea farm, a tea packing plant, and 3 more schools! Even in this seemingly lush region of the country the drought has reduced tea yields and everyone is feeling the effects.
Then, we moved on to Kisumu, situated on Lake Victoria. In the Bondo area, we visited a CIDA- sponsored micro-finance project which is helping fishermen to find alternatives in the face of a collapsing fishery. We also visited the Millennium Demonstration Village project at Sauri, headed by Columbia University’s Earth Institute. This ambitious project aims to demonstrate that sustainable development is possible and that the Millennium goals are, indeed, attainable. Agriculture, health, water, education, sanitation, and infrastructure are all being addressed through a partnership approach involving the community, government, other NGO’s and the Demonstration Village Project. Only a year and a half into the project, the lessons learned at Sauri are already being applied and adapted to12 other villages in different agri-systems throughout Africa. And in Sauri, the project is now being scaled up ten-fold, to a district level.
Our final destination was Nakuru, where we visited a home for street kids called the Child Discovery Centre. Although this project was just started in 2002, the Center is now caring for more than 140 children. Last, but not least, we visited the Lake Nakuru National Park where we added lions, a leopard, a jackal, and black and white rhinos to our now long list of wildlife sightings!
Needless to say, we were very busy but we loved every minute of it! We are now anxiously looking forward to the return of the pre-service teachers in order to hear more about their experiences of teaching and working in the Mukurwe-ini community. Over the next weeks and months, we will also be putting all we’ve seen and learned into lesson formats for Island school children.
All in all, this was a very special journey for me. I was able to visit some old friends like Rhoda, Shaad, and Gerald, and I made many new friends. I felt very privileged to be seeing the projects and meeting the people I had heard so much about over the years of my involvement with FHF. I would like to thank FHF’s Board and the GCI Management Committee for giving me this opportunity and all of the folks in Kenya who worked so hard to make our visit successful. I will always remember it.
posted by Admin at 7:40 PM
2 Comments:
We miss u girls very much n apraciate the work u did in mukurweini u r most welcome next time
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