I am sitting outside the computer lab and enjoying the nice morning breeze. It had rained over the night, so the road to the office was not as dusty as usually, and the Boda ride was sweet (no dustclouds to blur my vision). Ideally, the rainy season should have already started when I arrived, but like everywhere, the weather patterns have changed, and here in Kenya, they can be quite unexpected. It seems that now the rains have arrived and with the rains also malaria (several volunteers were diagnosed with the parasite last week). I was visiting a tailor another day, and she actually told me that I should wait until the rain has passed if I do not want to get malaria. I wonder where does this superstition come from. Like most Kenyans are afraid (literally everything stops when it is raining) of rain so do the mosquitoes. It is just that after the rain, they have so many little water bodies to lay their eggs and increase in numbers.
My goal for the following weeks is to mentor the trainers and make sure that everything runs smoothly. I have finished training the trainers, and we picked four promising individuals to lead the sessions so that the workshops at PAPO can continue when the project is over. For most of the trainers, it is their first workshop to lead, and we took some time during the training of trainers sessions to discuss the characteristics of good teachers and speak about public speaking. Each participant even gave a short pitch to sell their training services. I emphasized that trainers do not necessarily need to know everything, and it is okay to say that let`s google it together, or I will find it out next time. A concept that a teacher does not know it all is a bit hard pill to swallow as the classical teacher here does not want to admit that they might not know it all. Also, in traditional classrooms, game-based learning and energizers are not common practices, so it was pretty funny to look at their facial expressions when I informed them the first time that now we will play a game to have some fun. I can say that I did a lot of persuading on the importance of energizers and games, but I am not fully confident that they will implement them in their own workshops. We shall see that! A fun fact I learned is that one of the trainers, Annette, actually graduated from a game-based learning workshop with NGO Mondo some years before, while she was a substitute teacher at a local school, so maybe at least one group will play.
We have four trainers and many students interested in learning about the internet and improving their digital competencies. We decided to open up two groups. One in the morning, starting from eight to eleven and a second one just after that. The morning group will be guided by Annette and Bashir, and the afternoon by Valentine and Bonface. Most of them have just graduated from High School and plan to enter college in the coming year. All of the 19 participants have finished a general computer course. Still, they have limited knowledge about operating a smartphone (only a few have a personal smartphone) or using the internet to search for jobs or build their own business. However, they value digital skills highly and feel that this is the path to a better job in the future. Most of them live with their parents, and it would be amazing if this workshop helps them take their first steps towards independent lives and secure their dream jobs in the future.
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