by Julie Mutch
Another week has gone by in our internship to Kenya and we spent the week with members of the Muchui Women’s Group. At the end of the week we spent the day at Kinynjere Primary School. The school is twinned with a class at Tracadie School on PEI.
The purpose of our visit to the school was to hand out mosquito nets to the special needs class, as well as the nursery kids ( kindergarten ). We handed out nets to the rest of the school 2 weeks ago. This is the first time most of them would have mosquito nets to sleep under. The kids were very excited to see us again. After we handed them nets, the children began singing for us. They were so good! Eventually, more of the children came out of their classrooms and joined in. ( I don’t think much work got done that day in class!)
During the lunch break, we passed out candy to every student at the school. They were very excited to receive a small gift! Also during lunch, we invited all the students out onto the football field and gave them a brand new football ( soccer ball to us). Last time we were at the school we noticed that they were playing football with a small piece of rubber taped together, so we decided we would get them a new football to play with at lunch. The girls played a game, then the boys. We somehow then got asked to come into a couple classrooms while the teachers were having lunch. The students asked us to teach them something. Anything at all. All they wanted to do was learn. We let them ask us questions - about anything at all and tried our best to answer them! They were very curious about the Canadian school system and how it was different, and Katie got some questions on biology as well!
In the afternoon we held a small focus group with children that have a parent in the Muchui group. There were 6 at that school. We asked them about the women’s group and how it has made a difference in their lives. Their responses were excellent, and heartbreaking at the same time. Most explained that before they had water tanks( from the women’ s group) , they would have to miss school to walk to get water from the stream, and that many times they would not have any food at their house and the women’s group would feed them. Now, because of the group, their parents are making some money, and able to plant tree seedlings and sell them. They all realized that education was the only way out of poverty for them, and that farming in that area was very tough because of drought.
This coming week we are continuing our work with the Muchui Group. It will be our last week in Meru!
The purpose of our visit to the school was to hand out mosquito nets to the special needs class, as well as the nursery kids ( kindergarten ). We handed out nets to the rest of the school 2 weeks ago. This is the first time most of them would have mosquito nets to sleep under. The kids were very excited to see us again. After we handed them nets, the children began singing for us. They were so good! Eventually, more of the children came out of their classrooms and joined in. ( I don’t think much work got done that day in class!)
During the lunch break, we passed out candy to every student at the school. They were very excited to receive a small gift! Also during lunch, we invited all the students out onto the football field and gave them a brand new football ( soccer ball to us). Last time we were at the school we noticed that they were playing football with a small piece of rubber taped together, so we decided we would get them a new football to play with at lunch. The girls played a game, then the boys. We somehow then got asked to come into a couple classrooms while the teachers were having lunch. The students asked us to teach them something. Anything at all. All they wanted to do was learn. We let them ask us questions - about anything at all and tried our best to answer them! They were very curious about the Canadian school system and how it was different, and Katie got some questions on biology as well!
In the afternoon we held a small focus group with children that have a parent in the Muchui group. There were 6 at that school. We asked them about the women’s group and how it has made a difference in their lives. Their responses were excellent, and heartbreaking at the same time. Most explained that before they had water tanks( from the women’ s group) , they would have to miss school to walk to get water from the stream, and that many times they would not have any food at their house and the women’s group would feed them. Now, because of the group, their parents are making some money, and able to plant tree seedlings and sell them. They all realized that education was the only way out of poverty for them, and that farming in that area was very tough because of drought.
This coming week we are continuing our work with the Muchui Group. It will be our last week in Meru!
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