Cherished Friendships

Red Rose pupils reading to their friends their favorite book
'The Buggliest Bug'

It reaches a point in life when we need to make new friends beyond the normal borders. The Red Rose school pupils have these kinds of friends. The type of friends they can reach to to gain new insights about life and academics.

All the pupils in grades four, five, six, seven and eight have at least two PenPals from the Canton U U School (USA), Norwood School (USA), the Eastside School (USA) and schools in Austria. The pupils share with their penpals after every two weeks and have Skype meetings on weekly basis.

The prime advantages of these partnerships have been very evident especially the improved awareness our pupils have gained concerning other cultures. It has made most of our student acquire perspectives free from prejudices.

Exchanging letters has also helped improve the reading and writing skills of our pupils. It has encouraged better use of grammar skills. This exchange has also benefited the teachers who have had a chance to see how other classrooms are. They too have acquired new teaching methods, discovered new cultures and new insights.

 Keen listeners..

“I like the fact that I have penpal and whenever I feel lonely and I don’t have somebody to talk to, I can read my penpals’ letters. When I get older I would like to travel to different countries, experience the different interesting cultures that my penpals describe in their letters.” Francis Mwangi, a class 5 student at Red Rose.

Connecting Kibera Schools With The Digital World.

Computer knowledge has become a necessity in any professional venture in this 21^st century. The KiberaOnline Project is a long term multi-faceted program by Children of Kibera Foundation (CoKF) of setting up computer classes, teacher training, and an information technology curriculum. All this is geared towards bridging the digital divide and equipping the Kibera populace with information technology skills. Presently, the project has reached out to 3100 students/pupils in seven different schools through bighearted donations of 94 computers.

The first project initiated for this program was in July 2008 when a fully equipped computer lab was set up at Red Rose Children Centre.  The eleven laptop computers, one projector and contributions to purchase a laser printer and digital camera were donated by St. Lawrence University, New York. This marked the onset of a very ambitious project that would see children in Kibera not left behind as the rest of the world zooms ahead on the information superhighway.

In July 2009, another computer lab was established at Kibra Academy- a community school established by the Nubian community. Through CoKF, the school received 10 laptops and 20 desktops courtesy of generous donations from Kensington Cares-a charitable initiative of Kensington Tours that supports education for disadvantaged children.  The third computer lab was established at Lutheran Academy (now Karama Academy) in December 2009. Nine computers and furniture were donated in a ceremony graced by Elizabeth Penniman, a CoKF donor.  

The following year saw the establishment of the fourth computer lab at Ayany Primary School. The total number of computers donated was 15 desktops. It was the first lab established by the foundation in a public school. 

Our concerted efforts to expand led to the launching of the fifth computer lab at Olympic High School. The inaugural opening of the lab was witnessed by the Hon. Raila Odinga, the Prime Minister of Kenya. In 2012, two more labs were set up, one at PCEA Silanga High School and another one at Mashimoni Squatters Secondary School. The total number of machines donated to these schools was 18. 

Apart from the computers labs, through the KiberaOnline Program, CoKF organized free Level One Basic Computer Applications course for 58 primary school teachers from various institutions across Kibera slums. This was aimed at building the capacity of these various schools to be able to incorporate computer training into their curriculum.

 

In conclusion, this program is been designed to provide learners with an understanding of and practical experience in the use of the common computer applications. We strive to achieve our goal of installing and maintaining over 250 computers at 10 Kibera schools, serving more than10000, train and certify more than 100 teachers in computer literacy in a span of three years.

Learning the basics

Olympic High School Comp lab ready for use

The first 30 trained teachers

ICT 101