Voller Freude bekamen wir heute einen neuen und aktuellen Lagebericht aus Isiolo, genauer gesagt von der Schule in der Olng’arua Primary School. Emma, unsere Freundin und Kontaktperson für uns in Isiolo, hat ausführlich verschiedene Aspekte des kleinen Bildungszentrums beschrieben. (Ich weiß, der Text ist lang und zudem in englisch, aber vielleicht mag der die eine oder der andere sein englisch wieder auffrischen….)
Ich kopiere h
ier den Text von ihr, doch erst noch ein aktuelles Bild wie eine der Dorfbewohnerin Wasser zur Schule trägt.
Water
Currently all the water at Olng’arua School, including all water used in the kitchen, for children’s hand washing and for school cleaning, is carried to the school in containers by the school staff. Despite being extremely careful with their water usage the school still requires around 200lt of water a day and it all has to be carried to the school from the river which is a 10 minute walk away. Each woman carries a 20lt can so at least 10 trips must be made each day, which when you include the time taken to fill the containers, means that it takes 2 women 2 full hours each day to supply the school’s water needs. We hope to provide water to the school by pumping it from a nearby spring fed stream and storing it in a large storage tank. The area water committee, mandated by local government to manage the local water sources, has been consulted and they have approved the plans for the school water project.
Olng’arua Primary School and Community Education Centre Olng’arua School is located in Isiolo District in northern Kenya. The area is semi-arid and populated by pastoralists whose livelihoods revolve around cows, goats, sheep and camels. The whole district suffers from high levels of poverty. There is little in the way of infrastructure, few medical facilities of any kind and few schools. Those schools that do exist are poorly funded and many are operating with less than half the specified number of teachers. Food insecurity is a regular problem in the district and many families rely heavily on school feeding programs, especially through the long dry season between May and October. However, most school feeding programs only provide maize which exacerbates the high levels of malnutrition seen in children in the district.
Aims and Objectives The objective of Olng’arua Primary School is to provide caring, good quality, holistic primary education to children in the surrounding area. Through this the school aims to produce well rounded and capable young people who are confident and comfortable with both their own traditional pastoralist heritage and as citizens of the world. Olng’arua Primary School follows the national Kenyan curriculum and children who complete primary education here will be able to seamlessly progress to any Kenyan secondary school. The school does include various aspects that are not in the normal Kenyan curriculum however. These include traditional Maasai story telling, cultural events and a stronger emphasis on conservation topics. The objective of the Community Education Centre is to provide adult education for people of all ages who have had little or no formal education. The centre also provides the facilities for training programs in a range of vocational skills and a location to showcase working examples income generating projects.
Food and Nutrition Olng’arua School takes food very seriously, not just because there is a shortage of good nutritious food in most homes in the area but also because, as traditional livelihood practices are forced to change, it is important that young people learn how to feed themselves and their future families healthily. The traditional diet of a nomadic pastoralist was a healthy one however as pastoralist have become more settled, and in most cases more impoverished, many families are now restricted to eating only maize. Maize is the staple food of school feeding programs and of relief food; it is also much cheaper to buy than rice or beans but like them it stores well for long periods. This over reliance on maize leads to children who may have enough food bulk but are malnourished. Olng’arua Primary School provides a vitamin enriched multigrain porridge for breakfast, a mug of milk at the mid-morning break and lunch consists of beans, rice, vegetables and fresh fruit. The difference in health between children who attend Olng’arua School and their siblings who are either at home or who attend another school is very marked. The children who attend Olng’arua School have better skin and hair conditions, fewer colds, less instances of diarrhoea and suffer fewer sick days than their siblings who do not attend the school. Even the school staff, who also share the school meals, testify to the difference in their health prior to working at the school and even that they are more likely to suffer illness during school holidays than term time.
The Local Community Olng’arua Village is part of the Leparua community and is predominantly Maasai. The Maasai in this part of northern Kenya are part of the Laikipiak Maasai subgroup. Originally the Maasai roamed from the Serengeti and Maasai Mara in the south up through the central parts of the rift valley and across the Laikipia plateau north towards Maralal where they bordered the closely related Samburu tribe. When the white settlers came to Kenya and took over much of the Laikipia highlands the Maasai to the south and north became separated. While they remain one people the northern Maasai have, over the years, developed some cultural and linguistic differences. The Laikipiak Maasai, like their better known southern relatives, are traditionally nomadic pastoralists moving with their livestock to find pasture and water in the arid and semi-arid lands that form their homeland. Over time however the land that they used to roam freely through has become increasingly broken up by private ranches, wildlife parks and urban expansion. The dramatic increase in population in northern Kenya has meant that a once vast land is increasingly small. Fully nomadic pastoralism is now not a viable livelihood strategy in many areas of northern Kenya, including the west of Isiolo District where Olng’arua is located. While livestock still provides the main livelihood for almost all the Maasai in this area it is becoming harder and harder to support a family with livestock alone. There is a need for young people to gain skills that will help them find work in other industries. Olng’arua is on the border between Isiolo and Laikipia Distircts, it also sits between Lewa Conservancy and the Il’Ngwesi Group Ranch Conservation Area (many of the community are members of the Il’Ngwesi Group Ranch). Nearby are the Tassia and West Gate Community Conservation Areas as well as Buffalo Springs and Samburu National Parks. Wildlife conservation and tourism has a very strong presence here and with the right skills many of the young people could get employment in tourism and conservation related work.
Community Education Centre While Olng’arua Primary School aims to produce young people who are ready to take up this challenge the Community Education Centre aims to help young adults to gain the specific skills that are needed to gain employment in these fields. Through basic adult education to more specific skills training in topics relating to tourism, conservation and enterprise the intention is to help young people develop the skills needed to find sustainable employment in the local area. The Community Education Centre will also offer a show case for a range of practical business and self-employment opportunities that are applicable to the local environment, such as bee keeping, elephant dung paper making, aloe vera production, sustainable agriculture and improved livestock rearing. The Olng’arua Primary School and Community Education Centre are still in the early stages of development and not all of these idea have been realised but many are already underway such primary education for 40 children, adult literacy classes, a bee keeping show case and basic bee keeping training, guides training and training in elephant dung paper making. Community Involvement in Olng’arua School The Olng’arua community is not rich but those who have the means donate what they can to the school and community education centre. Currently half of the daily running costs of the school are met by donations from members of the local community. The development of infrastructure for the school such as buildings, furniture or water provision is beyond the financial means of the community, however they do help with unskilled labour whenever such a project is undertaken. Parents and community members also participate in the school through story telling sessions and cultural programs. There is a parents committee who take an active part in the school’s development as well as fund raising. During evenings and weekends the school’s facilities are used by the Olng’arua Community Education Centre which brings adult learners together for a range of classes and practical sessions including adult literacy and enterprise skills. The local community is very proud of the school and the community education centre and most members of the community are involved with, or take part in, the school in some way. The school has a long waiting list of children who would like to be admitted but shortness of funds for daily running, classroom space and lack of funds and housing for teachers currently restricts the number of children we can accommodate at the school to 40.
Who Runs Olng’arua School The school was established, and is run on a day to day basis, by the Ramati lee Maa Group which is a registered CBO. The daily administration is undertaken by the head teacher, Nademwa Ene Morijoh and she is assisted by Bimbi Ene Legei, the nursery teacher, and 2 cooks. The strategic development of the school is overseen by a school committee comprising members of the parents association, Ramati lee Maa, school staff and the DARE Foundation. DARE Foundation is a local NGO (registered with the Government of Kenya) which has been involved with the school since the outset and has so far provided all funds not originating from the local community. You can see more about the DARE Foundation here www.darefoundation.com
Other Schools in the Area Olng’arua School and village are located in an area that is privileged to have a lot of wildlife; in particular the area hosts a large number of elephants. Before Olng’arua School was started the nearest school was a 2 hour walk from the village. Elephants kill more people in this part of Kenya than any other animal. Only the older children can safely make this journey so until Olng’arua School opened children under the age of 12 were unable to attend school. The nearest school to the village has a very poor record with most children ending their period of education there all but illiterate. This can be seen graphically by the age of those attending the Olng’arua adult literacy classes; many of them are very young, only just past normal school going age, in their late teens or early twenties. Many attended the local school but completed their time there without being able to read or write.
School Development, Sustainability and the Environment. Ten years ago the Ramati lee Maa Group formed with a mission to enhance and protect both local traditions and the local environment. One of their first projects was to a protected an area where people could come and witness traditional Laikipiak Maasai life and to conserve local knowledge, traditions, stories and artefacts. Traditional Laikipiak Maasai culture is nothing without the environment in inhabits. As nomadic pastoralists, rather than settled farmers, the Maasai were rarely in strong conflict with the local wildlife. However with a rapidly increasing population and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle conflicts are becoming more common. By curating and promotion the best of traditional Maasai culture the Ramati lee Maa Group intends to protect the positive links between the people and the environment. The area of land managed by the group, including the land the school is built on, is strongly protected. It stands out clearly as an area where large trees still grow and plastic bags, the scourge of modern Africa, are not seen. The group wishes to build the school as sympathetically and sustainably as possible. Even with the limited funds available for the construction of the first class room and outdoor learning area the group tried as much as possible to create structures that blended with the environment and traditions of the community. If possible the group would wish to construct future buildings in an even more sympathetic style and with a greater emphasis on renewable building materials and sustainability. The group is actively looking for people or organisations that have skills and knowledge in environmentally friendly and imaginative building to help them fulfil these goals.
Olng’arua School Legal Status Olng’arua School is a private but not-for-profit school. This means it is registered with the government but not under government control. The school committee decided to take this approach, despite the fact that regulations for private schools are much more onerous than those for government schools, to avoid having to take the teachers that the government sent to the school. It is an unfortunate fact that most teachers do not want to work in the remote and often harsh conditions of northern Kenya. Consequently schools in northern Kenya tend to receive the least committed teachers, teachers that have proved to be problems elsewhere, or simply do not get sent teachers at all. As the teachers are such an important aspect of a school it was felt to be very important that the Olng’arua school committee should be able to choose their own. School Staff The two primary teachers we currently have are both from the Laikipiak Maasai community so they can communicate with the children in their local language and have a good understanding how the children live at home. The two women were chosen because of their natural ability with children and their understanding of the much more gentle approach to education that the school aspires to (as opposed to the tradition in Kenyan schools of beatings and of being punished for asking questions, Olng’arua school has a strict non-corporal punishment policy). Both women are in teacher training programs at collage (which run during school holidays). Also from the local community is a fully trained and experienced adult literacy teacher who takes the adult education classes. Specific skills workshops and training sessions are undertake but local experts or visiting trainers. In addition to the teaching staff the school has two cooks. These ladies not only provide all the food at the school but they fetch all the schools water needs and look after the school buildings during school holidays.
