What a busy and exciting month it has been.  Full of a beautiful sort of chaos and a slew of new endeavors.  When school is in session here in Kuria (the cycle runs with three months on and one month off, so the children go to school January, February, March, and then get April off, and so on throughout the year), the Education Team runs our outreach programs which travel to different rural and impoverished schools each day and offer intensive and focused English language learning programs.  We visit each of the ten schools we work with twice a month and stay there for the entire day each time.

When school is out of session, we launch the Learning Resource Center, housed at an actual building on the main grounds of Nuru – Kenya.  The Learning Resource Center (Learning Center), offers students who drop-in each day different innovative workshops that focus on supporting reading, writing and comprehension, as well as a library where they can read books of their choosing and have facilitator’s assist them in finding the definitions for new words and test and support their comprehension.

In late November, the Education team opened the Learning Center (this is only the second time it time it has ever been opened).  When it was first launched during the previous break period, the Learning Center had a peak attendance of around 350 students.  We hit that number within the first week and quickly surpassed it.  For the first time, we are tracking individual students and their progress, which meant introducing a comprehensive registration and record-keeping system.  As new students arrive, we register them (collecting all the relevant student data), get their photos, assign them ID numbers, and give them a file in which to keep all their supplies and work.  Currently, after 2 weeks, we have around 800 students registered and see around 350-450 at the Learning Center on a daily basis.

Students playing a word game during opening day at the Learning Resource Center

In addition, the Education team also launched the first-ever travelling version of this program, called the Mobile Learning Resource Center, which was created to serve those populations of young people who live too far to make the walk to the actual Learning Resource Center.  The Mobile Learning Resource Center operates in a different, remote location each week and has served about 85-125 students during each of its first two weeks.

It has truly been one of those times that remind us what the Education program is all about.  It’s been incredible to see the commitment of these students to learning.  Hundreds upon hundreds of students have shown themselves to be willing to get up before dawn each day of their breaks from school to do chores before the sun rises and then walk barefoot and often alone for hours following treacherous and muddy paths in the rain, usually on empty stomachs, just to continue learning instead of going out to play with their friends.  They are so eager knowledge and willing to do whatever it takes to create a better future for themselves and their community.   It fills me with awe to see them take such joy in what seem to me to be the simplest and most commonplace things.   The thrill of using chalk or a crayon, the opportunity to read books, bewildered that such a thing as a dictionary exists and awestruck to be able to use one.

Every day in which these students continue to get up early and make the long and arduous journey to the Learning Center, they are showing just how important learning is to them and how far they are willing to go to obtain it.   It is humbling for me to play a part in this push for knowledge and growth, to arrive at the Learning Center each day to see them waiting silently in a single file line for over an hour before the Center actually opens, to see them come day after day despite hardships and fatigue.

Just registered and eager to learn!

There is a phrase in Kiswahili that means ‘we are together.’  When I approach each day and see them there waiting so respectfully, I think to myself how fortunate and honored I feel that ‘tuko pamoja’, we are together in this struggle for a better, brighter future.

The Education Program Leader, Victoria (Vicky) Tissian, teaching upper and lower case letters.

Greetings from Isibania! It’s difficult to believe that it’s been a month since Lindsey Kneuven left Kenya.  I’m so honored and humbled to have the opportunity to play a part in supporting Nuru’s Education Program and have been loving every busy and exciting moment of my time here.  I came on at a very interesting time when we had just scaled our outreach program to four new schools, which gave me the rare opportunity to observe the difference in knowledge, skills and attitudes between students at schools we’ve worked with for some time and those at the new schools.

Children truly have many things to fear here: hunger, illness, loss of family members and friends, early marriage, genital mutilation, and so on.  Yet, a daily and pressing fear for them is caning.  Caning in schools is illegal in Kenya, yet still, children are caned openly for simple mistakes, tardiness, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the most important lessons Nuru’s Education team teaches, I like to sum up in a term I hear them say regularly: ‘usiogope’, which means ‘do not fear’.  They repeat this term constantly to coax the children out of their shells, encourage them to try new things without fear of failing, and know that no punishment awaits them regardless of what their answers or questions may be.  Because of this, children in schools we have visited for some time are visibly much more active, engaged, and willing to participate, and even allow themselves the freedom to laugh, ask crazy questions, and just enjoy learning.

We’re here to support English language learning (one of the official languages of Kenya) and through it, all the positive impacts it will has on the futures of young people here.  As a team, we recently brainstormed ways to help students build the confidence and skills needed to overcome obstacles to reading, writing and comprehension, and discussed a number of techniques to help the students recognize and sound out letters as well as to break down longer words into more manageable parts.

The next day George, part of our team, was using a book about animals with a group of Class 2 (or second grade) students.  Animals are everywhere here.  When I walk home from work, I dodge swinging tails of cows, step over chicks chasing mother hens, and am welcomed home by the buoyant leaping of neighborhood dogs.  Perhaps because they are so common, a few children know some of the simple three-letter names in English.  However, some students, especially a group of very shy girls in the back of this class, were too afraid to attempt reading or writing very short words…or even to make eye-contact with George at the beginning of class.  George was patient and extremely engaging.   He used new phonetic teaching techniques he had just learned and put his own innovative spin on them.  When the children had no idea how to spell ‘sheep’, he asked them to make the noise to tell each other to be quiet and asked them how you would spell that ‘shh’ sound.  Then, he asked them about the ‘eep’ sound and the first student guessed ‘ip’ (the letter ‘i’ in Kiswahili is pronounced like a long ‘e’ in English), and George walked them through what a short ‘i’ and what a long ‘e’ sounds like in English.  With impressive skill, he drew a ship and a sheep for them and helped them understand the difference in the meanings as well.

When they were too afraid to try ‘kitten’, he asked who knew how to spell the word ‘kit’ and who knew how to spell the word ‘ten’, then showed them how the two words together make the word kitten.  They were thrilled to know how to spell a six-letter word.  At the end of the class, the group of girls who hadn’t even made eye contact with George at the beginning were jumping up to volunteer to write the new words they’d learned (and wrote them correctly!).

I have to say that the caliber of the education team is incredible.  They are brimming with brilliance and passion for their community, especially the young minds they work with day to day.  Literacy takes time. Change certainly doesn’t happen overnight.  However, I have been amazed and impressed to see how incredible transformations in understanding and confidence can take place in less than even an hour.

Posted from Nyanza, Kenya.

It seems like only yesterday that Thomas and I were passing the blog torch. In reality, it was about a year and a half ago that I assumed the role of Education Program Manager here in Kenya. The time has come for me to head back to the States and for a new Program Manager to step in out here in Kenya. The rotation of U.S. staff is an intentional part of Nuru’s model. The rotations are designed to decrease dependency on outside staff and personalities while reinforcing the importance and development of local leadership, to infuse fresh ideas and expertise at key times in the model’s implementation cycle, and to enable the team transitioning back to the States to stay at the forefront of leading innovations in their field, develop partnerships and conduct research that supports the team’s needs in Kenya.

We are fortunate to have found an excellent new Program Manager who will be leading the Education team for the next 7 months. Her name is Jessica Hansen and she brings with her a wealth of experience, a passion for education and poverty eradication and a wonderfully open, receptive and positive attitude.

Jessica began working with refugees along the Thai-Burma border over ten years ago.  Prior to joining Nuru International, for over two years she managed innovative programs for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, which focused on capacity building, life skills and leadership training, and community education for thousands of Burundian refugees, along with comprehensive case management and advocacy for hundreds of vulnerable unaccompanied refugee and immigrant children.  She also served as the Education Program Officer for Mercy Corps, a Program Specialist with the International Rescue Committee/Women’s Refugee Commission, and a Program Assistant for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).  She interned with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2005 and the Centre for Refugee Research in 2004.  She holds a Masters of Social Work with a specialization in International Social Development and a Bachelor of Arts in International Politics.  Her work abroad has focused primarily on education and the protection and empowerment of women and children in Southeast Asia and East Africa. She will be a powerful contributor to the Education Program’s growth and development and we are honored to have her join our team.

Jessica and I have been working with the Kenyan team over the past few weeks to get her up to speed on the history, development and current operations of the education team. She will fully take over management of the program next week and I will move back to the States to focus on strategic elements of the program, research, preparations for scaling and other issues. I will continue to work closely with Jessica and the team daily.

Today Jessica is out observing the team’s delivery of outreach programs to two of the new schools we are working with, Sorore and Nyasese. So far this week, we have shadowed outreach at 3 of the 4 schools that we have been working with since May. Last week we also shadowed a mixture of new and old schools and she had the opportunity to observe the variety of challenges we face – ranging from unique resource/learning level issues at each school, very low literacy levels across the board, our own staff’s need to grow their knowledge of effective alternative teaching methods, etc. Shadowing has enabled Jessica to see the practical implementation of our programs and get a better sense for our areas of strength and areas in need of development. She has observed the team’s delivery of various lesson plans and participated in their daily feedback sessions.

Over the next 7 months, Jessica will be working to solidify our implementation strategies of the outreach and learning center programs. She will be working with our team to continue the Uwezo assessments so we can use that data to further refine and tweak the model for maximum impact. She will be working with the team to set more structure around the delivery of lessons. She will also work with the team to refine our field manual and the lesson plans it contains ensure our work remains relevant and that the lessons truly produce impact. The team will work on tracking their observations, feedback, challenges and successes in an organized fashion so we have a better understanding of the anecdotal signs of progress as well as a better understanding of the school environments, hurdles to literacy, etc. Now that she’s up to speed, we will move forward and tap into her great experience and perspective to build on what we have implemented and developed so far. I’m excited to have her join our team to help move this program to the next level.

Posted from Nyanza, Kenya.

As children donned their backpacks and prepared to head back to school for a new term, the Nuru education team prepared to resume outreach efforts; unbeknownst to us the Kenya National Union of Teachers quietly prepared to launch a countrywide strike. September 5^th, teachers mounted a strike demanding the government respond to issues of understaffing in schools and the lack of full-time, contract employment. In an article for AfricaNews, a representative of the Kenya National Union of Teachers said, “Treasury says it’s looking for over six billion shillings in a week’s time to solve the teachers standoff. We know the Government has asked for a week to look for money, they should work very fast. Our main aim is to withdraw labour and let it bite.”

The strike affected all public schools across the country and was particularly disruptive to the older students who should be preparing for their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams on October 18th and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations which are scheduled for November. Instead of reviewing the syllabus in preparation for the exams, those students were sitting idly in classrooms.

In our district, many teachers showed up to schools and required pupils to be present, though they refused to teach until the terms of the strike were met. Other teachers did not show up to schools and left students to study on their own. Some teachers tried to stay and teach, but were threatened by lorry loads of teachers who would come in to chase the teachers out of school. Our team stalled all programs so as not to jeopardize our relationships with teachers. The Ministry advised us that running Learning Center programs in our district would be perceived as undermining the potency of the strike and could create tension for our team as well as hostility when schools reopened.

Teachers’ demands for improved student teacher ratios in the classrooms have become more insistent since the introduction of universal free primary school in 2003 and the steady rise in enrollment since. An article in the Washington Post addressed the understaffing issue by saying, “The union wants the government to give full-time jobs to 18,000 teachers hired on temporary contracts and hire an additional 9,040 teachers.” It also said, “Some 79,000 teachers are needed to reach the internationally recommended teacher to student ratio of one teacher to 35 students. Kenya’s public schools see an average of 50 students for every teacher, though some classes have only one teacher for 100 pupils. The union projects a shortfall of 115,000 teachers in the next couple of years as the population increases.”

The issue is compounded by allegations that money intended to alleviate these strains on the education system has been reallocated to defense. The Washinton Post quoted Head of the Kenya National Union for Teachers, Wilson Sossion, as saying, “Parliament had allocated around $53 million for hiring more teachers last week, but the ministry of finance diverted the money to the ministry of defense, even though the ministry had not requested it.” In the article, they also indicated that “’…taxes will have to be increased if the teachers are to be hired,’ said Joseph Kinyua, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance. ‘Spiraling food and fuel prices are already causing great hardship for many Kenyans.’”

A week after the strike was initiated, the government is said to have made a deal with the union to move more than 18,000 contract tutors to permanent positions and hire an additional 5,000 or more permanent teachers in January. According to an article on AllAfrica.com, “The agreement says the government will come up with a long-term strategy to address the shortage of teachers in the country. It is estimated that there is a shortage of about 75,000 teachers countrywide in public primary and secondary schools. The development of a long-term strategy, together with the employment of nursery school teachers, will be factored in the 2012/13 budget.”

As a result of the resolution brokered on September 9th, teachers will return to schools and we can resume our outreach programs. We hope that in January, the promised teachers will be hired and will help to establish a more manageable student/teacher ratio in the schools. This solution will not be a silver bullet though and we will need to continue our push to strengthen literacy.

During the lull caused by the strike, we were able meet with the local chiefs and secure their support of our plan to scale to two new sub-locations in the coming weeks. They have also committed to rally the elders and help us reach the families that do not send their children to school. Our goal is to work on educating those parents and families on the value of education and encourage them to send their children to the Learning Center to take advantage of programs and tutoring there.

We are also preparing for the upcoming transition of western staff. The education team will welcome in a new fellow next week and after a month of training and transition, she will take over things here on the ground and I will head back to the States to support the program from afar. I will also be transitioning our income generating activity, the dairy farm. In the next post, I’ll fill you in on what the transition entails and provide an introduction to our fellow. I’ll also update you on our progress with the outreach and learning center programs and provide you with some exciting updates about the dairy project. Stay tuned…

Posted from Nyanza, Kenya.

Since opening, attendance at the learning center has steadily hovered around 300 – 350 youth. Schools are preparing to reopen in September, and they have just opened their doors to offer students remedial attention in the form of “ tuition.” This week many of the kids from the learning center returned to school for tuition, leaving us with about 145 kids per day at the center. Based on our interactions, we have found these kids to be among the most vulnerable. They are the ones whose parents cannot afford the minimal fee for tuition and are often in and out of school depending on the demand for school fees or exam fees. As a result, their literacy levels are very low in both KiSwahili and English.

In this group, we have found many 9 – 10 year olds who are unable to tell you the sound that goes with a certain letter. They have trouble reading 3 letter words and seriously struggle with reading comprehension. To address the severity of these issues, the team has emphasized phonics in concert with experiential learning and writing workshops. Reinforcing concepts using these different approaches has proven effective so far and we are working with the Monitoring and Evaluation team to schedule a baseline of literacy at the learning center so we can track the change made over time.

Experiential learning has been a great tool to engage youth in active learning. The team members have conducted several activities that have inspired new curiosity among the students and have clearly helped with retention, while accelerating learning for those youth who seldom or never go to school.

This the past week, Sabora led an activity centered on plants and flowers. He read a book about leaves and flowers with the students and then took them for a walk down the path outside the learning center and asked them to find their own interesting flowers. When each child had a flower in hand, they returned to the center and learned about the different parts – leaves, stem, petals, etc. They learned the various words and talked about the sounds that the letters in each word make. This exercise was really focused on learning vowel sounds, but when done in such a creative way, became a much more dynamic activity.

Munsi also tried his hand at this type of experiential learning. He was using a chart to teach the kids about insects and mammals. He had them focus on the grasshopper and each catch one in the bushes surrounding the center. I was surprised how quickly and effortlessly the grasshoppers were found and caught. With a grasshopper in each small hand, the kids embarked on learning to identify and spell the parts of the grasshopper – legs, eyes, etc. After releasing the panicked but intact grasshoppers, the kids went to the chalkboards and drew their own grasshoppers and identified the different parts of their drawing using their new words.

The team joined forces on Wednesday and surprised the kids with paper planes as they returned from lunch. As kids crowded around to learn how to fold their own planes, others launched a chaotic dogfight that raged outside the learning center until the lunch period came to an end. The facilitators immediately moved the kids into writing workshops focused on airplanes and the sky. The kids wrote new words on their planes and left at the end of the day with their planes in hand and beaming smiles on their faces.

The power of these activities lies not just in connecting an experience with a concept or learning opportunity. Equally powerful is the engaging these kids in the learning process – making learning fun. For many, the repetitive teaching style employed here deadens their interest and loses their attention. Overcrowded classrooms, poor student/teacher ratios and a lack of resources compound that problem, enabling the students to easily fall through the cracks.

The vulnerable kids we’re seeing at the learning center right now – those not attending tuition and those who are likely to miss many days throughout the term – are responding especially well to this experiential and creative learning style. Their curiosity and energy is being harnessed and we’re already seeing them shed their shy, inhibited and self-conscious layers in favor of confidence, inquisitiveness and willingness to contribute. Their trust for the team is also enabling this shift.

The other day it rained heavily right at the end of the day. The kids all took shelter in the learning center and as they waited in the hall for the rain to subside, Vicky and I listened as they pointed to the pictures of the team members on the wall and went from one to the other commenting on their strengths. Sabora smiles as he teachers, they said. The teachers never cane us. George reads with you and helps you learn new words using the dictionary. Pamela, Vicky, Munsi, Moses, Naomi, Esther… they went through the facilitators one by one pointing and adding their own thoughts about the strengths of each.

Watching the kids bridge the gap between learner and teacher was pretty amazing. There is such a divide between those two groups in the schools and it often prevents students from feeling comfortable asking questions, expressing new or creative ideas, or admitting that a concept is not clear or fully understood. Our ability to bridge that gap will help us be a true resource for these kids, during our outreach programs and at the learning center. Hopefully we will be able to demonstrate the impact of this approach to the teachers here and help them as they make the shift to be more accessible to their students. In the meantime, we will continue to work on inspiring a passion for learning, reading and writing by infusing our lessons with creativity and supportive attention.