Kenya

John Anderson  spoke to us about the Africa projects he has been involved in with clubs in District 5040. The 2 districts covered were Mchakos and Kitui about 6 hours outside of Nairobi. The Vocational Project included bringing computer equipment to the districts but it seems some of the teachers are not comfortable enough to actually use the new equipment in their classes so the project was increased to help training the teachers to be more confident.

Team included 6 teachers from Richmond, Burnaby, Smithers(2) and others didn’t know each other ahead but settled into a well-oiled machine as soon as they got together. March this year they went to Nairobi and on to their target districts. Very remote. They were named the “Zebra Team” because they brought black and white together. Worked at 4 schools. S.E. Kenya University was involved in the grant and involved in the followup job making sure the program is sustainable. 2 teachers from each of the 4 schools are being trained to be comfortable setting up and trouble-shooting the computers. The Canadian teachers practice team teaching—observe 1 day then work with the teachers then go to the rooms to team teach.

Kenya is in the process of changing their curriculum throughout the country but the teachers on the ground are getting minimal training. Most of the kids board at their school. They are given a bed but they are responsible for bringing their own mattress plus bed linens. S.E. Kenya University has over 800 teacher candidates. In many schools, as Cleone told us, there are up to 100 students per classroom. Planning seems to happen on the run.

This Fall (November) there are 11 teachers coming to exchange to the schools the Canadian teachers came from. It will be a great shock to many as some will need to go to schools in Smithers and it will be very cold and snowy.