Rafiki Link is a program that started in the year 2007 when the first team of students came from Bodwell High school in Canada to visit Kenya.
It connects Students in the west with students in Maai-Mahiu area by having them sharing about school ideas and culture on their school blogs. Our vision for this program is to create an international network of students who learn from and with each other Mwaniki being the program co-ordinator and Mali Bain being the education program director.
We had the second team of students who came from Bodwell High school on April 2009 and they had a great time with our Kenyan students, they were able to go for camping together at Naivasha for two days where none of the Kenyan students had ever camped and they were able to communicate one on one unlike what they had been doing on communicating on internet, this gave them a true insight of the American culture. This was a very great opportunity for the students and they really learnt a lot from both sides. They also worked together in building a kitchen at Ngeya primary school which is the biggest school in Maai-Mahiu area, and Comfort the Children is helping to improve on the infrastructure and also on environmental issues. Ngeya is also one of our partner schools in this friendship link and its connected to Albion Heights junior school in Toronto Canada who donated desks due to N
geya primary school being overpopulated and some pupils sitting on the earthly floor during their lessons.
Apart from Bodwell High school donating a kitchen at Ngeya primary school they also donated some learning materials to both Longonot secondary school and Maai-Mahiu secondary school and these materials have been of great help to the students.
Comfort the Children international has been very lucky to receive volunteers who have been coming and many of them have been helping out in evaluating our programs, others are interested in joining our running programs in Maai-Mahiu area. We had Jessica Jerney from the University of Minnesota and Simon from Kansas state University who came this year on August to work with Mwaniki on evaluating the Rafiki Link program and they had a chance to visit the schools around Maai-Mahiu area that have been involved in this program so that they could see what was happening on the ground.
We also had Andrew who is a teacher from Free State High school in the USA who also came this year on August and he is also very interested in connecting his school with schools in Mahiu area and he came with his mum, Taylor Arachtingi who was his former student and Autumn who is his friend also came with him. They had great conversations with the Kenyan teachers and students and we discovered some students in Rafiki Link club who were very talented, one of the students could recycle plastic bags by making table mats which could also make more other materials like earings, hand bracelets etc, this is one of the ways that can greatly help in cleaning of our environment where people throw plastic bags all over the town . They were also able to attend Maai-Mahiu secondary school closing ceremony whereby Andrew was given a chance to present school awards at the parade and each of them was given a chance to say a word. They were also in a position to visit Kenton primary school which we are looking forward to partner with though we are still looking for transportation means f
or Mwaniki since its located at a far distance from the main road, lastly they were taken by Mwaniki to the Internally displaced persons camp where they were able to share with the people who are living in the camps about what happened to Kenyans during the post election violence. They really enjoyed sharing with Kenyans who were very welcoming and they had a cup of tea in one of the tents.
In general Rafiki link is moving on smoothly and Mwaniki is working very hard this term to get back to the schools which opened this week on 8th of October, though last term he was very busy working with our teams that came this summer and it a little bit interrupted with all our programs but we are looking forward to hire someone who will be taking care of the teams when they come so that all of our programs continue running.
Mwaniki has been holding meetings with the Rafiki Link coordinators this week about how the program will run this term and also welcoming the students back to school after their holiday.
Follow up on the next blog about Rafiki Link about what will be happening.
It connects Students in the west with students in Maai-Mahiu area by having them sharing about school ideas and culture on their school blogs. Our vision for this program is to create an international network of students who learn from and with each other Mwaniki being the program co-ordinator and Mali Bain being the education program director.
We had the second team of students who came from Bodwell High school on April 2009 and they had a great time with our Kenyan students, they were able to go for camping together at Naivasha for two days where none of the Kenyan students had ever camped and they were able to communicate one on one unlike what they had been doing on communicating on internet, this gave them a true insight of the American culture. This was a very great opportunity for the students and they really learnt a lot from both sides. They also worked together in building a kitchen at Ngeya primary school which is the biggest school in Maai-Mahiu area, and Comfort the Children is helping to improve on the infrastructure and also on environmental issues. Ngeya is also one of our partner schools in this friendship link and its connected to Albion Heights junior school in Toronto Canada who donated desks due to N
geya primary school being overpopulated and some pupils sitting on the earthly floor during their lessons.Apart from Bodwell High school donating a kitchen at Ngeya primary school they also donated some learning materials to both Longonot secondary school and Maai-Mahiu secondary school and these materials have been of great help to the students.
Comfort the Children international has been very lucky to receive volunteers who have been coming and many of them have been helping out in evaluating our programs, others are interested in joining our running programs in Maai-Mahiu area. We had Jessica Jerney from the University of Minnesota and Simon from Kansas state University who came this year on August to work with Mwaniki on evaluating the Rafiki Link program and they had a chance to visit the schools around Maai-Mahiu area that have been involved in this program so that they could see what was happening on the ground.
We also had Andrew who is a teacher from Free State High school in the USA who also came this year on August and he is also very interested in connecting his school with schools in Mahiu area and he came with his mum, Taylor Arachtingi who was his former student and Autumn who is his friend also came with him. They had great conversations with the Kenyan teachers and students and we discovered some students in Rafiki Link club who were very talented, one of the students could recycle plastic bags by making table mats which could also make more other materials like earings, hand bracelets etc, this is one of the ways that can greatly help in cleaning of our environment where people throw plastic bags all over the town . They were also able to attend Maai-Mahiu secondary school closing ceremony whereby Andrew was given a chance to present school awards at the parade and each of them was given a chance to say a word. They were also in a position to visit Kenton primary school which we are looking forward to partner with though we are still looking for transportation means f
or Mwaniki since its located at a far distance from the main road, lastly they were taken by Mwaniki to the Internally displaced persons camp where they were able to share with the people who are living in the camps about what happened to Kenyans during the post election violence. They really enjoyed sharing with Kenyans who were very welcoming and they had a cup of tea in one of the tents.In general Rafiki link is moving on smoothly and Mwaniki is working very hard this term to get back to the schools which opened this week on 8th of October, though last term he was very busy working with our teams that came this summer and it a little bit interrupted with all our programs but we are looking forward to hire someone who will be taking care of the teams when they come so that all of our programs continue running.
Mwaniki has been holding meetings with the Rafiki Link coordinators this week about how the program will run this term and also welcoming the students back to school after their holiday.
Follow up on the next blog about Rafiki Link about what will be happening.
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