Old and new...

So with the last day of teaching officially over there are so many things to look back on and a few more to look forward to; our list of goals hanging in the dining room has check marks all over, but we still have one more amazing week of activities to plan. I can’t help but feel sad that there are only a few weeks left in project, yet we have accomplished so much this year that it seems incredible we have been here for less than 2 months…

This coming week we have a fantastic line-up of events to facilitate. Our first outreach activity will occur on Tuesday and will consist of tree planting, a community clean-up and a VCT at Kasarani Sports Complex with our students from Blessed Hands Secondary School. Looking back at that first week of teaching with these students, it is unbelievable to see how much we have all developed as teachers. I can only speak for myself, but the first week I was a bit nervous to be teaching a group of 52 form 3 (grade 11) students who challenged our knowledge and amazed us with the questions they asked. I am looking forward to seeing this group of students again, maybe I will be able to convince the aspiring rapper “Napking aka Pumpking aka Rapking” to show us his talent, provided he doesn’t have another sore throat…

Our second event will be in Kibera and will involve the students from John Paul II and Kibera Glory, our final school. The day will consist of a VCT and student-led performances guided by members of the YESS club. The focus will be on HIV testing and community education around the topics we presented to the students. The students from Kibera are very driven and creative so we are confident that the day will be a great success. On Thursday we will be holding a networking conference at the Kivi Milimani where we are staying, with the hope to draw potential partnerships from the Nairobi area. At the conference we will be presenting our project accomplishments, current areas of development and future goals for the organization.

We have a bit of a break on Friday and then we will be going full steam into our final outreach activity which will be held at Embakasi Girls’ Secondary School on Saturday June 26th. This event will bring football (soccer) teams from every school that we taught at into a full-day tournament, with medals and trophies for the winning teams. We are planning to have a movie called “Shuga” playing for the students in the morning, which was developed by a youth group and focuses on similar topics to the ones covered in our curriculum. Throughout the day, we will have VCT counselors testing both students and community members in the Mukuru district and the Kenya Forest Working Group will be providing trees for the students to plant in their school grounds. One of our lofty goals is to see if Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai can attend this outreach day to encourage environmental responsibility and inspire students to become actively involved in the conservation of their community. Angie, Sheila and I visited her office today at The Green Belt Movement (the NGO that she founded to address environmental conservation and women's rights) to drop off a proposal. Hopefully she will find time in her busy schedule to consider our event, as it would be an absolutely amazing experience to have such a motivated, inspiring, and accomplished woman there to speak in front of the students...