At long last an update from the nutrition team.
We cannot believe that it has almost already been a whole month since we landed in Nairobi. The last four weeks have been a blur of data collection, excel spread sheets, and emails from Jennifer Taylor. This past week, we have finally been able to see our hard work pay off. We conducted our first lunch program feedback session with Kamuketha Primary School and our first family healthy eating seminar with the mothers of Ruuju’s nursery class.
The feedback session went really well. The staff at Kamuketha were very eager to learn and were very receptive of our recommendations. We were able to come up with several concrete goals to help improve the nutritional quality of both the uji and githeri they are serving their students. The children in nursery to standard 4 are really enjoying their uji with milk thanks to Farmers Helping Farmers. We talked to a couple of standard 2 students who were going to be very sad when they have to graduate to standard 5 and no longer have milk in their uji. Although this is one of the newest Farmers Helping Farmers schools, their garden is looking great and is providing vegetables for the githeri and is looking better and better each visit. The staff is very excited and enthused to be using crops from their garden to directly impact the health of their students. They are starting to grow pumpkins for the githeri and since our feedback session will now try to grow sorghum and cow peas to add to the uji flour. Although we got a lot done during our visit we took time to hang out with the children. They tried their very hardest to teach us Swahili but all we were able to mumble (with wrong pronunciation) was “jina langu ni Kaylynne or Christina” (My name is). Once they figured out we were hopeless Swahili speakers, they tried to teach as how to play marbles which was also unsuccessful. Needless to say they spent the whole morning laughing at us. Hopefully they still think our nutrition advice is credible.
We started the day with butterflies in our stomachs about our family
healthy eating seminar. We were worried that the group of 30 women would not actively participate and care about what we were telling them. In the end our butterflies were all for nothing as the 100 plus women that ended up attending the session were wonderful. We could not have asked for a better first session. The group was really great at asking many smart questions and really loved to talk (even though we couldn’t understand it). They really listened to what we had to say and seemed to really value our expertise and knowledge. Although we believe they really enjoyed our seminar they seemed to be extremely appreciative and excited about any opportunity to learn how to better their families. It was really great to know that all of our hard work preparing for our session did not go to waste. We really had great time teaching so many women who were eager to learn about nutrition. Although it all ended really well, it was frustrating at times because this was our first Kenyan presentation through a translator. This meant we were not used to saying two short sentences and having a translator take 5 minutes to relay the message to the women. It also took some time to not get flustered by more and more women joining the group every few minutes with crying babies. Slowly, as more and more women trickled in every few minutes, our group of what was supposed to be around 30 women grew to over 100 women plus many many babies and small children. Any frustrations that we may have had went away when we got a standing ovation and a song sung along to us. You also know that you are greatly appreciated when you get a hand written card that says
"Ruuju Primary School Appreciation
Kelynne Parkers
No words can explain the kind of love you have shown to us. You are the people who have enlighted our community at large in many ways. May god bless you and give you long life to see the fruits of your labour. Thank you"
This alone really justifies all the long hours of work we have already put into our projects here and the hours that we will continue to put in over the next few months.
The feedback session went really well. The staff at Kamuketha were very eager to learn and were very receptive of our recommendations. We were able to come up with several concrete goals to help improve the nutritional quality of both the uji and githeri they are serving their students. The children in nursery to standard 4 are really enjoying their uji with milk thanks to Farmers Helping Farmers. We talked to a couple of standard 2 students who were going to be very sad when they have to graduate to standard 5 and no longer have milk in their uji. Although this is one of the newest Farmers Helping Farmers schools, their garden is looking great and is providing vegetables for the githeri and is looking better and better each visit. The staff is very excited and enthused to be using crops from their garden to directly impact the health of their students. They are starting to grow pumpkins for the githeri and since our feedback session will now try to grow sorghum and cow peas to add to the uji flour. Although we got a lot done during our visit we took time to hang out with the children. They tried their very hardest to teach us Swahili but all we were able to mumble (with wrong pronunciation) was “jina langu ni Kaylynne or Christina” (My name is). Once they figured out we were hopeless Swahili speakers, they tried to teach as how to play marbles which was also unsuccessful. Needless to say they spent the whole morning laughing at us. Hopefully they still think our nutrition advice is credible.
We started the day with butterflies in our stomachs about our family
healthy eating seminar. We were worried that the group of 30 women would not actively participate and care about what we were telling them. In the end our butterflies were all for nothing as the 100 plus women that ended up attending the session were wonderful. We could not have asked for a better first session. The group was really great at asking many smart questions and really loved to talk (even though we couldn’t understand it). They really listened to what we had to say and seemed to really value our expertise and knowledge. Although we believe they really enjoyed our seminar they seemed to be extremely appreciative and excited about any opportunity to learn how to better their families. It was really great to know that all of our hard work preparing for our session did not go to waste. We really had great time teaching so many women who were eager to learn about nutrition. Although it all ended really well, it was frustrating at times because this was our first Kenyan presentation through a translator. This meant we were not used to saying two short sentences and having a translator take 5 minutes to relay the message to the women. It also took some time to not get flustered by more and more women joining the group every few minutes with crying babies. Slowly, as more and more women trickled in every few minutes, our group of what was supposed to be around 30 women grew to over 100 women plus many many babies and small children. Any frustrations that we may have had went away when we got a standing ovation and a song sung along to us. You also know that you are greatly appreciated when you get a hand written card that says"Ruuju Primary School Appreciation
Kelynne Parkers
No words can explain the kind of love you have shown to us. You are the people who have enlighted our community at large in many ways. May god bless you and give you long life to see the fruits of your labour. Thank you"
This alone really justifies all the long hours of work we have already put into our projects here and the hours that we will continue to put in over the next few months.
1 comment:
Way to go Nutrition team!! the tile really suits. You have been working really hard, and it is paying off. Isn't it great to know that you actually made a difference? The balanced meal resource looks great. Sounds like we had some women in the group who could/will benefit from the infant sessions you will do later.
Loved the pictures-and that was Elizabeth the teacher in it? Do they think that one of you is Kaylynne and one is "Parkers". I think Tuck has a new nickname.
Jen
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