We are back from our Christmas break in Turkey. A wonderful visit with our daughter in Ankara, including an overnight in Cappadocia, then four days in Istanbul. The only spoiler was the brutal return trip. Early evening departure from Istanbul, arriving in Nairobi at 2 am and then a wait for the first flight out to Kisumu at 10 am. Still recovering from a compeltely sleepless night.
However, we came back to a busy schedule and great news as some of our programmes show great progress.
Went shopping today in the big new supermarket after making arrangements for the next few days. A young woman spoke to me. 'Do you remember me?' Out of context, it's sometimes hard to place a face. She belongs to the Youth Group who have attended business training. Over the holiday they have had training which we organised for keeping rabbits (good source of cheap protein) and have set up their soap making project for which they have customers.'We are not idle any more.' Remember that the unemployment rate in Kakamega area is around 60%.
This group is part of the 'coalition' to form a cooperative and we will meet Jan 14 to decide on the major income-generating project in which all will participate.In the mean time we have given seminars in poultry keeping, rabbits and bee keeping so the component groups can generate extra income.
It is slow to bring people together who have little formal education and experience of the world outside this area. But they are progressing step by step towards independence.
We think we have found a winning formula for improving performance in Kenyan elementary schools. We teach the Virtues Project for eliminating the use of the cane and improving atmosphere. We run Read for the Top to improve language comprehension in as many schools as possible, and we offer teacher seminars for language teaching strategies. One of our schools has just improved phenominally jumping to a high position in the district rankings and another has also shot up. The first school has incresed their average score in the national exams by 40 points--an unheard of achievement. The interesting thing is that the whole school adopted the Virtues, but the Read for the Top was conducted in class 6 and 7. So the high achievers this year (class 8)were not participants in the organised contests. Nor did this school send many teachers to the seminars last year becasue of some political nonsense at the education office. I am betting they will send more this year!
In the other school Virtues training was recent and they are yet to do their Read for the Top. Yet they improved their scores by 25 points.
The Provincial Education office is ready to give us full endorsement for Virtues seminars in schools. Not only does this training help eliminate (sometimes vicious)coporal punishment, but as we see improves academic performance. The schools will be able to cover our costs for seminars and we pray for enough funding to continue the teaching in communtities. The urgency in this is the prospect of conflict and violence leading up to the elections later this year.
We are so grateful to all those who donate to us to make this possible.
Yesterday we interviewed 20 anxious people for job training and selected 19. If our funding allows it, we will maybe be able to take more before we leave. Photos to come.
Today we go to Isecheno primary to select three students for secondary scholarships and Friday we welcome our American teachers for the seminars to continue over the next three weeks. The slogan 'help the children by helping their teachers' is so very true.
We shall be training new schools for Read for the Top later this month as well as the business training follow-up.
As soon as I get some breathing space I will select some photos for you.
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