Life outside of school: Student interviews and home visits

On one weekday afternoon, Mr. Sabwa, the headmaster of Kibra Academy, spoke to us interns amidst a few high-school students who were making use of laptop battery power during one of Nairobi’s power rationing days. Mr. Sabwa, who usually espouses an impulsive and stern demeanor in front of the students, revealed his more compassionate side in this small, private environment.

“I always ask myself, if I had grown up in Kibera, would I have made it?” he asked rhetorically. “I learn to admire these kids. You wonder how a girl who continues to go to school in form 3 and form 4, how did she do it?”

Mr. Sabwa’s point is one that became increasingly clear to the interns as we spent more time in Kibera and learned about the more intimate details of the students’ lives. We grew to admire the students, realizing that somehow, in an environment where families have few economic opportunities and children are vulnerable to violence and sexual exploitation, the students that we taught and mentored every day somehow managed to get to school and earn decent grades.

During the last week of the internship, Sarah and I were charged with profiling the sixty CoKF-sponsored students, including 45 primary-school students and 15 high-school students. Later, fifteen of the sponsored students would show me their homes in the heart of Kibera, an experience that put faces to the names and places we’d heard about in the interviews.

Below are some quotes gathered during the interviews from students about their family lives, health, interests and obstacles.

Family life
“My father is a tailor. Sometimes we sleep hungry. Sometimes when there is no electricity, he can’t do his job. He just sits down.” –Class 5, Red Rose Primary School
“My father has two new wives. The first one is very harsh. You can’t even drop a spoon. When she beats me, I run to my auntie’s house or I scream so they can help me. One time she beat me so hard, I went to the hospital.” –Class, 5, primary-school student

Interests
“I like community work, like cleaning the environment. While I’m at home, I work with friends who want to help, so we use brooms and rakes to clean the outside.” –First year high-school student
“I have a deep interest in biology, for example, how things are born, grow and live.” –First year high-school student
“I like to help my mother fetch water, wash utensils and clean the house.” –Class 5, Red Rose Primary School
“I want to be a pilot. I would travel to the U.S.A., China and Pakistan.” Class 2, Red Rose Primary School
“I like sausage, chips and ugali.” –Kindergarten student, Red Rose Primary School.

Challenges
“Dealing with peer pressure is difficult. There are so many idlers that can persuade someone to do anti-social activities, for example drugs.” –First year high-school student
“I have a problem with my sight due to usage of lanterns for more than eight years.” –First year high-school student
“When I was little, my mother always went out and she used to leave me out the door and I would eat sand. She would come late and there would be no food. But now I live with my aunt and I don’t sleep hungry.” –Class 2, Red Rose Primary School
“I need to work extra-hard to achieve what I want and to retain back my grades that were better last year.” –Second year high-school student
“Sometimes, I feel like I want to die because at home the police fight at night. Because they shoot the gun up and it scares me.” –Class 1, Red Rose Primary School
“The home environment is noisy which is not good for personal studies.” –First year high-school student

The power of role models
Despite some of their obstacles, it is clear that role models can greatly alter the outlook of Kibera's children. I believe our time in Kibera did successfully introduce computers and make their relevance in our rapidly changing world understood. I believe that the students in Kibera learned valuable cultural information about life in the United States. But, I think the most important aspect of the internship was our job as mentors working with Jeff, Ken and the teachers at Red Rose and the Kibra Academy to encourage these students, to convey that they have a choice in their destiny. One Red Rose student at the end of her interview asked me if she could add something to her profile, a quote that demonstrates the power of role models in Kibera.
“Let me tell you my wish: to go to America. To have money so I can help street boys and girls. Like Ken. So I can help others like I was helped in primary school.”


On August 13, CoKF-sponsored students show me their homes in Kibera.


In the home of Laureen, a ten-year-old at Red Rose Primary School.


Red Rose students lead the way to their homes in Kibera.


Kibera residents grow vegetables in sacks such as these. The vegetables are then sold near the railroad or main street.

Red Rose student Mercy, age nine, and I pose in her home. Mercy lives with her aunt and nine other children in this small Kibera residence. "There is barely room for them," says her Red Rose teacher Sylvia.

CoKF-sponsored high-school students Kelvin, Kevin, Hassan and Joseph concoct a fictitious story about how they are all related. Teenage boys will be teenage boys.