An Opportunity to Serve
This project has been a blessing to me and my students. One of the core values that we are trying to teach our students is service. We want to teach them to serve others, and to see not only how their service blesses the lives of those that they are serving, but also how that service blesses their own lives. This project is helping my students to look beyond their own circumstances. They are learning that even if they can only afford to donate $.10, a lot of their $.10 together turns out to be quite a few Kenya Schillings. They are learning what true teamwork is.
I have a student who I will call Travis. Travis is very intelligent, and I have the privilege of having him in my class. Travis is one of my students that has really grasped what we are trying to do with this project. We had an activity called a pie in the face activity. The students were to vote for their “favorite” teacher by donating money. The top contributors would get to throw a pie in their teacher’s in the face. I know this probably sounds a little strange, but this is actually a very popular activity here in this area.
We started the collections for the activity on a Monday. That Monday, Travis came to me and donated $11. I was a little surprised by the amount, but I gladly took it and thanked him for his donation. The next day on Tuesday, Travis came back to me to make another donation. He told me that he wanted to donate $10.87. Knowing what he had donated yesterday, I was surprised. Being his teacher, I asked him the following question: “Do your parents know that you are donating this much money?” He looked at me and he held up a $5.00 bill. He told me that the $5.00 bill was from his mother. He then told me that he asked his mother if he could donate the entire contents of his piggy bank, and she said: “Yes.” I then looked at a little container that he pulled out of his book bag, and it was filled to the top with coins that he had been saving. He unscrewed the top of the container. I opened up my envelope that I was putting contributions in, and he slowly poured the entire contents of his piggy bank into my envelope. He looked under the cap of the container and he found a few coins that were lodged there, and he knocked them free, and they fell into the envelope too.
This sacrifice brought tears to my eyes. He gave everything that he had to help the students there. Not only did he tell me how much money he was giving me, he also told me exactly how much it was in Kenya Shillings. Consequently, every donation that he made, he told me how much it was in Kenya Schillings. He goes on line every day, and he checks the exchange rate, and he tells the other students how much the value of the Shilling fluctuates from day to day. Travis ended up donating over $23 by the time the activity ended. He was the top student contributor for that activity. He hasn’t stopped there. He noticed that as he walked outside in the community and around our campus, people would drop change on the ground, so he started picking up the change. At the end of every school day, he comes in and gives me a handful of change. He is awesome, and I have learned a lot from him.
This story of Travis is only one of a number of special student experiences that I have encountered during this project so far. I am very proud of my students, and I know this experience will be invaluable to them.
Posted in Uncategorized by Rechel with 6 comments.
New and Improved
Hello Everyone. Welcome to my new and improved blog. I hope you all like it. From looking at the pictures, hopefully you all can see how important it is for us to get involved with this project. If you would like to help out in any way, contact me and I will tell you how you can help.
Rechel
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I Am Learning Everyday.
Working with this project has been an eye opener to me. I have learned a lot about the life of our friends in Makindu, Kenya. Every communication with Principal Muoki educates me about the life of the people in Makindu, and I in return try to educate him about the lives of the people in the US, and about the educational system in America. It has really been enlightning.
One of the things that I have come to learn is how incredibly blessed we really are to be living here in the US. We have everything at our fingertips. I have a computer at work and a laptop at home. I can easily lay on the couch or in my bed when I want to check my emails. This is not so for the people in Makindu. They have to travel to the nearest cyber cafe to get online, and then they can only use the service if the electricity is up and running. They have rolling blackouts there to preserve energy. We really have nothing to complain about.
Rechel
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The Beginning of a great Friendship
The Parkway Kawelu Project is one of my recent brainstorms. I will be going to Kenya this summer to visit my husband’s family. While I am there, I want to do a couple of projects that will benefit the people of Kenya. The Parkway Kawelu Project is one of those projects.
With the help of my husband, I found a primary school in Makindu, Kenya called Kawelu Primary School. I was able to make contact with the head teacher (principal) Kiio Muoki. He has been instrumental in giving me the information that I need to start this project. The help that he has been giving me is not without sacrifice. He goes out of his way to travel quite a distance to a cyber cafe to send me emails with answers to questions that I have. He does not have access to a computer other than the cyber cafe, and Kawelu does not have electricity. My students have been asking lots of questions, so I forward those questions on to him and he answers everyone of them even if some may seem a little strange. Mr. Muoki wants to help educate our students, and the dialogue that he has had with them has be excellent.
The plan is for Parkway to serve Kawelu by doing some fundraising activities to help supply Kawelu with materials that will help improve student achievement. The infrastructure at the school is lacking, and there are not enough readers, books and desks for the students. Parkway and Kawelu are forming a friendship that will help both of the student bodies to learn from each other. This project will not only help the students at Parkway, but it will also benefit the students at Boggy Creek and Ventura Elementary schools. Both of these schools have agreed to assist us in this project, so it will truly be a community effort.
When I go to Kenya this summer, I will take letters from the Parkway students to Kawelu, and when I come back, I will bring letters back from the students of Kawelu and give them to the students at Parkway. We will begin a series of fundraising activities on Monday, March 29, 2010. Our goal is to initially raise a minimum of $3000. That is a lot of money, and the Parkway students are struggling just like the students at Kawelu, but it is on a much different level. We want our students to understand that despite their individual struggles, there is always someone that is struggling more than they are.
I truly believe that this project will bless the lives of all four schools. As we all embark on this project, may we all cherish the journey ahead, and forge strong relationships of friendship and respect.
Rechel
Posted in Uncategorized by Rechel with 11 comments.