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Date Posted: January 24, 2017
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The Obama family legacy with children and young people

July 25, 2015 "I love looking at all the individual faces in this photograph of the President greeting children at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya." (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

July 25, 2015
“I love looking at all the individual faces in this photograph of the President greeting children at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.” (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The immediate former United States first family has contributed a lot to the improvement of education and the general aspirations of children. From the People Entertainment Network final interview with the Obama’s there’s a lot that they have contributed to change how kids relate to a sitting president.

  1. Making the Whitehouse accessible to every American child. We have seen adorable photos online of children of all social backgrounds at the Whitehouse. These children not only did tours of the house on the hill, they had one on one interaction with the president. Having teenage daughters was one of the contributing factors to his love for kids.
  2. Introducing programs that were against the grain to the otherwise rigid Whitehouse program. For instance, having a girl scouts night camping on the Whitehouse south lawn.
  3. If you have interacted with kids, one thing is sure. They have a lot of innocent questions. The Obamas showed great tact in answering questions from different children in a way that encouraged their inquisitive nature. One instance is during the People Entertainment Network interview. One funny question is whether they would have a big party before leaving the Whitehouse, and whether they were invited. He answers that question in part by saying that the party will be past the young girl’s bedtime.
  4. Do you remember the letter to president Obama in 2015 from Sophia? The 9 year old wrote to ask the president why there were no women’s pictures on the American dollar bills. She went ahead and suggested a number of women who deserved to be on the dollar bills, among them being Michelle Obama and Rosa Parks. He replied to this letter by encouraging her that her suggestion was a great idea, and that she should keep focusing on school and in helping others in the things that mattered most to her. According to npr.org, the Whitehouse receives about 700 letters daily, a portion of which are from kids. There is a book of kids’ letters to president Obama on Amazon.
  5. The former first family was instrumental in championing girls’ education globally. We saw Michelle Obama on the forefront of the Let girls Learn initiative, a multi-sectorial campaign that elevates existing programs and invests in new efforts to expand educational opportunities for girls.
  6. Prioritizing STEM education through projects like the White house Science Fair in 2010. 2016 saw the 6th Whitehouse science fair, to get more girls and boys interested in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics education.
  7. Not forgetting the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) that has run for the past five years, and the YALI Central & East Africa regional center that aims to mentor future African leaders in Business, Civic leadership and Administration.

The Obamas will always have a soft spot in young peoples’ hearts. We can only hold our bated breath that the initiatives shall continue to have the impact they have had on the youth for the past eight years.

Featured image courtesy of Time Magazine.

Date Posted: September 29, 2016
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School Trips and the Slap that Wouldn’t Leave my Memories.

What are your memories of school trips? I remember the slap landing squarely on my small face, the thud it had, the fingerprints that were imprinted on my cheek. I still remember how he grabbed at my grey sweater from the back, his nails digging into my flesh, before delivering the perfectly timed slap. I still remember it years later.

Yes, I can swear I even remember the madman’s smell. I can still see vividly his dirty tattered clothes, turned dark brown with oily patches of black. He was a scene to behold. Alarming to a little 10-year-old girl. It all happened so fast that the teachers we were with never saw it. Only my best friend Emily saw the scene. She saw me clutching at my face, still absorbing the shock. What did I do to deserve the slap? Heaven knows.

Maybe my face resembled the madman’s old enemy. Maybe I walked along the path marked as his territory, obstructing his fast-paced walking. Maybe that, because after delivering the slap, he immediately resumed his pace. He was gone. Cracks on the soles of his dirty bare feet hit the ground with loud thuds as he hurried away as if nothing had happened.

The beautiful school trip to Uhuru Park was suddenly ruined. At least for me. The teachers were with other students ahead of us. They didn’t witness the mad rage from the madman, who probably thought everyone else was mad, save from him. They didn’t witness the slap that left my face burning with pain and imprinted by the pattern of a hand that was by then several meters away.

Now, I remember taking many school trips. Like the one, we had to Seven Forks geothermal power stations when in class six. The huge turbines and weeping tunnels. What about the visit to Lake Naivasha? I remember the beautiful horizon dotted pink by flamingos. And before I forget, the culturally rich Bomas of Kenya with different traditional huts, topped up with performances from Maasai dancers.

And yes, I remember how I looked forward to those trips. You see, it was during school trips that my parents would go out of their way and buy all sorts of snacks. Oh! Those days of sharing. Every child was eager to share what they had packed for lunch. The more, the merrier.

Yet of all those good memories, this one memory stands prominently. The slap which seemed to stick on my face. The slap which no matter how hard I tried to wipe, just would not clear from my ten-year-old face. The slap which left me shaken to the point that I forgot to cry. The slap that left my best friend Emily equally shaken, but still trying to comfort me, the friend with whom she had been laughing with just minutes earlier.

That’s why it is always good to walk together in a group when you are on a school outing. That’s why teachers should never lose sight of their students when on a school trip. Something terrible might just happen, and destroy the good memories of school trips. Every time I walk through Uhuru Park along the path guarded by wire mesh, I still think that a madman may just appear out of the blue, grab me by the back of my sweater, and slap me again.

Date Posted: September 27, 2016
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Tourism for All includes Locals as much as Foreigners

Image Courtesy of Capital FM

Image Courtesy of Capital FM

During this week’s team meeting, the ice breaker was interesting. Name your ideal holiday destination. Simple task it is right? Not when you are the one to start the round and come up with an inferior place like Mombasa, while other team members mention all sorts of fancy places around the world. I started doubting my answer when one by one, places like Greece, Maldives and France were mentioned.

Thinking my answer over later, I decided it was the best I had. Having traveled widely, I felt I hadn’t been loyal to my country as much because there are places in Kenya I haven’t set foot. Mombasa is one of those places. Kenya is a beautiful place that people travel from all over the world to come visit. Ironically, most Kenyans are not as much of domestic tourists. I found myself culpable of this.

27th September marks the World Tourism Day. It is a day set aside to foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic value. The 2016 theme is Tourism for All: Promoting Universal Accessibility. Accessible Tourism for all is about the creation of environments that can cater for the needs of all of us, whether we are traveling or staying at home.

Universal Accessibility can be viewed in terms of disability friendly, the aged or even small children. Are our tourism sites friendly to provide universal access? I think that’s a question I would leave open for the various tourism sites and tour operators to ponder.

My concern is that most Kenyans like me, may be having a notion that tourism is for the foreigners. We never know what we have at home until we go to other countries and find our indigenous animals for instance, in cages at foreign zoos. I have witnessed a couple of those- Giraffes, Hippos, and peacocks.

I have been on the London Eye, seen the Big Ben, visited the Calgary Zoo in Canada, been to Ottawa, the business capital of Canada, and to China, yet never to Mombasa? But I digress.

calgary-canada

Accessibility may not be an immediate issue, at least in Kenya, as much as embracing the idea of domestic tourism. I am of the opinion that to even tell whether our tourism sites are accessible, we should first experience them. Embracing domestic tourism needs to start at an early age. Activities like school trips ought to be embraced by parents because they contribute to children’s learning of their country.

Once in a while, just taking time off your busy schedule and taking family outings, visiting the museums, game parks, wildlife sanctuaries or even simple picnics can teach children a lot about their surroundings. Let’s get into this inquiry of whether our local tourism sites are really accessible, by experiencing them for ourselves. Come to think of it, who is to blame when children call a cow a big dog? Some of them have never even traveled up country to see actual cows.

Speaking of which, I should take a vacation to the Coast, to finally say with beaming pride that I have traveled around Kenya. Which holiday destination is on your bucket list? We would love to hear from you in the comments.

Featured image (WTD2016)

Date Posted: July 16, 2016
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Malala Yousafzai: “I am 66 Million Girls deprived of Education”

nobel-peace-prize-2014-malala-yousafzai-and-kailash-satyarthi-3-638

Malala Yousafzai was born on 12 July 1997 in Pakistan. This week marked her 19th birthday, it also marked an important day in education. Malala, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate is a girls’ education activist. She spent her 19th Birthday in Kenya, at the largest refugee camp in the world.

  1. This girl is a natural educational activist who has a way with words. She just says simple statements in her speeches, that end up being profound quotes. One particular one is “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”
  2. She is brave to fight for what she believes in, despite being shot by the Taliban on the head, for suggesting that girls should go to school. At that young age, she continued to champion for literacy of girls and all children.
  3. Malala was a blogger under a pseudo-name, for the BBC blog at 14 years. This is just proof that no matter how young, your voice can be heard.
  4. She was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace prize at only 17 years of age, making her the youngest person to receive that accolade.
  5. She has and continues to help refugee girls attain education. Last year on her 18th birthday, she spent time with Syrian Refugees and opened the “Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School” near the Syrian border. This provides quality secondary education to more than 200 Syrian girls.

    This year on her 19th Birthday, she spent time in Daadab Refugee camp, in Kenya, and continued championing for the education of refugee children. She spoke against the Kenyan Government’s plans to shut down the camp.

  6. She set up the Malala fund that helps young girls gain literacy skills. In Kenya for example, the Fund supports girls from Nairobi’s slums to enroll in NairoBits’ Girls’ Centers, where they receive training in information and communication technology (ICT) skills, reproductive health, and life skills; and training to prepare them to enter the workforce. The program also assists the girls to find jobs and internships in the technology sector.
  7. In 2011, she received Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize and was nominated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu for the International Children’s Peace Prize. In response to her rising popularity and national recognition, Taliban leaders voted to kill her.

    The right to equal access to education is something worth fighting for. We learn that one person can be a voice to many who are voiceless. Age doesn’t matter when it comes to standing from what you believe in. Malala is my youngest sister’s age, yet she has done a commendable job globally. What will you stand for today?

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Date Posted: June 21, 2016
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Algeria Blocks Social Media to Contain Exam Leakage

Algeria

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Exams cheating is evidently not a problem that’s unique to Kenyan education. As it is, Algeria has also been hit by the same problem that got social media ablaze with criticisms of the Education Cabinet Secretary’s proposed solution to curb cheating in schools.

More than half a million secondary school pupils are retaking their baccalaureate exams in Algeria after a major leak of the papers online earlier this month. A total of 555,177 pupils are re-sitting partial baccalaureate exams from June 19 to 22.

Algerian authorities have decided to temporarily block several social media websites including Facebook and Twitter, during the exam period, to prevent further cheating. The Social Media is being blocked from early in the morning and turned back on in the evening until the completion of the exams.

The Algerian Ministry of National Education said that all measures have been taken to ensure the smooth running of the exams. “We are working in collaboration with other sectors concerned, namely the National Police, and other concerned stakeholders”, they said.

Authorities reportedly arrested dozens of people, including officials working in national education offices and printers, earlier in June, as part of an investigation into how parts of the 2016 high school exams were leaked onto social media.

Critics are saying the move to cut social media as an easy solution. They think that better controls like putting in place infrastructure in exam centers to avoid students from accessing exams leakage should be employed.

A month ago, the Kenyan Ministry of Education CS, Fred Matiang’i banned visiting days and prayer days in third term for boarding schools. These were part of measures to curb exam leakage in schools. A move which was met with wide criticism. However, there were some who were in support of the strategy.

The Algerian ministry said the unusual move was to protect pupils from “phony topics” that might appear on social media. All other parts of the internet were not affected.

Now the Algerian problem could also be tied to well-developed infrastructure. Question is if Kenya could also be headed in that direction. Imagine the Kenyan social Media blocked due to exams. Oh well, maybe this is just my over active imagination.

Republished with permission from Eneza Education.

Date Posted: April 16, 2016
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How Tech Industry has improved the Kenyan education system.

BRCK Education Kio Kit

BRCK Education Kio Kit

Photo credits

Featured image

Last month, we went to train a Teens Online Safety Workshop at Kwani? During the World Storytelling Day. I was massively challenged by the level of knowledge of the children. During the introductions, eight-year-olds were already learning code. This makes our school days a far cry, in comparison.

The Kenyan Education system is rapidly evolving to accommodate new technology. During our time, ability to read and write coherently, was a huge accomplishment for an eight-year-old. I don’t want to mention the exact year, for obvious reasons. A lady’s age is her well-kept secret. Moving on swiftly…

According to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), the uptake of mobile phones continued to grow during the first quarter of the 2015/16 Financial year spanning July to September 2015. According to the quarterly sector statistics report by (CA), at the end of the quarter, mobile penetration stood at 88.1 per cent with 37.8 million subscribers up from 36.1 million in the previous quarter.

Innovative Solutions

These developments are being reflected on by the approach to modern education. Organizations like Eneza Education are taking advantage of these facts to provide mobile solutions for school children. They have mobile applications that help students learn through the use of mobile phones. Text books can be very expensive, especially for children from resource strained backgrounds. Eneza Education’s solutions give students countrywide the privilege to have a virtual tutor, revision material and quizzes, at an affordable rate.

Akirachix is a non-profit organization that seeks to empower young women by providing programming, coding and IT skills.  Their programs are developed to reach young women at different levels, in Primary, High School and University, those working in technology or aspiring to have a career in technology, making it an effectively wholesome program. They hold holiday Tech boot camps for children and teenagers, to encourage more young women to pursue careers in technology.

Some of these developments arise due to the gaps that exist in the Kenyan education system. One such initiative that integrates Technology with education is e-Limu. A group of young Kenyan technology experts invented a computer tablet with an educational program that has the potential to enhance the learning of school children. The interactive device, a tablet, aims to engage children as a teaching aide with videos, diagrams and quizzes.

ekitabu is yet another Kenyan innovation in the ed-tech field. They target to improve educational achievement, engaging students and teachers through ebooks, content creation, and becoming digital citizens. eKitabu has over 500,000 titles collected from educational publishers worldwide including books in Swahili, Arabic, Kinyarwanda and others approved for national curricula, with a growing list of languages and titles. They aim to lower the cost of books for education and increase access to them, in a sustainable way and at large scale.  They have so far brought digital content to over 650 schools across Sub-Saharan Africa, in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Ghana.

Partnerships

Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO)’s project in Kibera- Africa’s largest urban slum. Among the projects I visited was their community school for girls and I must say that technology plays a big role in their curriculum. At the headmistress’ office, I saw some blue gadgets that looked like tablets. So out of curiosity, I asked Shilpa Guha, their Programs Liaison Fellow, what the gadgets were.

Apparently, Worldreader donated some e-readers to SHOFCO’s school. Worldreader provides e-readers to ensure distribution of literacy materials to produce digital citizens. The E-Readers have several books installed, including some of the curriculum texts. Well, this could just be the next bright solution for school going children. I’m saying this considering the bulk of textbooks that children carry daily to and from school. Some of those children as young as in class four carry very heavy bags full of text books daily.

“Tech plays a huge role in the curriculum we provide. Last week we sent some girls to Akirachix Tech and Arts kids camp”, says Shilpa. I am of the impression that partnerships between the educational sector and innovators, play a big role in incorporating Tech in education.

On my way home, I see children carrying backpacks with solar panels. I then remember the lady behind the innovation, Salima Visram, a young Kenyan who sought to solve the problem of lack of electricity for school going children’s night studying. Her innovation was among the many that were exhibited during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) held in Kenya last year. This solution is holistic because it addresses the academic, health and environmental components of children living in rural areas and urban slums that lack electricity.

Nairobi’s Innovation Hubs

This article will not have served its purpose without mention of Nairobi’s technology incubation hubs. According to this article on the African Business Magazine, Nairobi has become the tech hub of Africa, a niche that could be worth more than a billion dollars in the next few years.

One of these hubs is the iHub, which is located just a few miles from the Nairobi’s CBD. Most of these Kenyan Tech startups have been developed from this shared work-space that hosts innovators and entrepreneurs.

All these efforts to incorporate Technology in education are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG number 4 which states that by 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes. Article 4.7 a further states that by 2030, the goal is to build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all.

Cyber Safety

Which brings me to the final point, Cyber security. As with every new development, there exists a downside. The use of some Technology in Education obviously exposes children to cyber bullying, identity theft and dangers of meeting strangers online who have bad intentions. This is why programs like BeTheCop by Communications Authority were developed. (CA) developed a booklet that has guidelines on child online protection. It can be used by any parent or guardian trying to communicate to children on online safety.

The Bloggers Association of Kenya also holds Teens Online workshops- these are online safety workshops to educate teenagers and parents. This is the reason why last month we were training children at Kwani?