finally finished all of the children’s profiles this morning, here’s a sneak peak at one…
christabelle, a beautiful three year old girl whose mother was 14 when she gave birth and passed away. she loves colouring and skipping rope. when she grows up, she just wants to be smiling.
have a look at little ray of hope school under ‘our children’ to see all of the profiles on our kids. it’s so hard reading some of their stories, but these kids are so resilient and each one deserves the whole world.
ray of hope; an informal bridging school for kids who never had the chance to go to school (either because they’re street kids or from the slums, or because they are HIV positive and their parents have passed away or abandoned them) and teachers are working out of the goodness of their hearts to try and stop the ever-growing number of street kids and thugs on the streets, then to bring them to a level where they’ll be able to go to formal school (with sponsorship). our mentor from the HIV clinic, vincent, has a lot to do with this school and its attached clinic, so he brought us here.
the feel of this place is incredible; there are about 45 kids in the junior class and maybe about 35 in the senior class. the ages of the junior class are between 2.5 and 6 years old, while the older class are between 7 and 17 years. there’s been a huge teacher strike in kenya since I’ve been here and these kids have come to love school so much, they don’t want to miss out – so they come here. at least that’s how it is for the senior class. the seniors have all been ‘sponsored’ by people who have come to visit the school and have fallen in love with what the teachers are doing to get kids off the streets. so usually they aren’t at the school as they have proper school to attend but they do come to ray of hope on saturdays. it costs about $500 a year to send one of these kids to school a year; inclusive of uniforms, textbooks, exercise books, stationary, transport and food.
the juniors, however, only just got ‘recruited’ in may of this year. I say recruited because the majority of the kids are from the surrounding slum or from the streets, some are orphans, some live with relatives, some are HIV+, but the teachers went out looking for kids to start school – to get them out of the environment at home & to give them a fighting chance at having an education. I’ve even visited the slums where these kids live, I honestly cannot believe the horrible start to life some of the kids have had. it brings me to tears hearing the stories of how the father of the two youngest girls (twins) in the junior class tried to poison and kill them so he didn’t have to take care of them as their mother had already done a runner on them. these poor girls were hospitalised and luckily the teachers at the school were recommended to go and literally save them from would have ultimately been what would kill them.
before going here for the first time, vincent mentioned that these 45 kids just started in the junior class and that they don’t have exercise books or pencils just yet, so if we were in a financial position to, it would be really appreciated if we could donate anything that could help out. so mike (canada), hajime (japan) and myself went and bought exercise books, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, rulers, scissors and coloured pencils… all the things that a child should have when they start school. in fact I couldn’t help but think of how lucky I was to have books and stationary when I started school and each new year of school, that trips to office works are just the norm, that dad would cover my books in – what I thought was – super cool laminate, when kids have awesome crayons or pencils, some have new backpacks with the newest roxy or rip curl key-rings… it’s just the little things like that which really show the huge huge difference of between us.
they couldn’t be happier with their ‘starting school’ gifts.
so I’ve been to the school quite a lot actually, on days when I’m not needed at the clinic or when we don’t go out HIV testing in the field. the principal, evelyn, is so so beautiful. every time I go, she gives me such a big hug and tells me that I’m such a blessing.. bless her cotton socks, I don’t think I’m a very good teacher but she tells me that each time I come, their days are made better. if you ever need affirmation, come to kenya. I was sick one day so I couldn’t make it and evelyn emailed me saying: “honey, how are you feeling after friday? get well soon. we miss you already. lots of love and a speedy recovery. evelyn.” how beautiful. she’s also mentioned to me that she knows I have a mum in australia, but while I’m in kenya, she can be my kenyan mum so if I have any problems or needs, I should go to her. seriously? how did I get so lucky?
one day I taught the junior class, bloody hell that was hard work. trying to keep the attention of 2.5-6 year olds going when they haven’t eaten breakfast/when they don’t speak english/when they are still learning to speak swahili is really hard work. I did really simple things like ‘my name is ___’, ‘I’m ___ years old’, ‘I have ___ brothers & ___ sisters’ etc. but even that was hard for the two girls who are 2.5 years old and are still learning how to speak swahili! so I managed to start them drawing with the coloured pencils I gave them with drawing their favourite animals, favourite places.
a lot of the kids don’t get breakfast or dinner at home, because they’re families are just so poor they have absolutely no money to spare on food and depend on the one mug of ‘porridge’ the kids get for morning tea at school. so they come to school on an empty stomach, which no child should ever do because how on earth can you learn on an empty stomach? they get their ‘porridge’ at about 11am and many don’t bring lunch from home, so the teachers try to buy some street food for them – like beans or chips, something to tie them over until they get home. but for a lot of them, that mug of porridge and half a handful of braised beans is all they eat.
I’m using quotation marks for the porridge because its not like you and I know porridge at home; you know, the nice oats cooked with milk and then sometimes you put brown sugar or honey or banana or all three on top. no, “uji” or porridge is made from a variety of flours such as millet flour, sorghum flour and corn/maize flour, a purple looking sludge, which is excellent for growing kids, it just doesn’t look very appetising. the sugar, however, makes it taste pretty good!
what one of the older kids in the junior class drew. pretty chuffed that she drew a nurse after I told them that’s what I was
I’ve also been lucky enough to teach the older class french. I would never have thought of teaching that but hajime (another volunteer from japan) taught japanese the day I was teaching the little kids, and I was jealous, so I told the kids I’d teach them french. it was so awesome, they were so willing to learn. I started with just simple words like family, mother, brother, father, sister, cat, dog, house, god, church, love, peace etc and then they started shouting out really random words like government. god when I was a student, I would not have thought to ask what government was in french, but these kids are unlike any others I’ve seen before. they’re so willing to learn and really want to further their education so they ask so many questions. amazing.
travelling alone 