Get Together With A Purpose

by Thomas Bwire

The mood at the center this afternoon was adorable as pupils who had just cleared their primary national examinations known as Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination (KCPE), sat in one of the classrooms as the blaring sounds of reggae music could be heard from the Sony music system. It was a great way to kick start their long holiday as they await the result of their exams after Christmas period.

In the Kenyan education system, it takes eight years of primary school, and then the pupil sits for national exams that will enable him/her join high school education for a period of four years.

But as for now, the pupils present at the Uweza Center sat on the benches smilling, while for some, they took moments to chat with their friends. Since the outside weather was sending some signals of heavy down pour, Becky Gitau the Generation-T Club teacher took charge of the programme and asked everyone to step outside so as benches could be arranged for everyone to get enough space.

Once everyone was seated, food was served, and the menu comprised of cooked rice famously known in Swahili as “Pilau.”  This is a kind of delicacy is cooked with some meat inside and tastes delicious. Chapati too was part of the menu as well as a glass of juice to wash the food down the throat.

As the pupils sat and ate their meal as one family. I took the opportunity to talk to some of them and get to know their expectations, now that they are done with primary school.

14 year old Fredrick Mwandindo from Kibera Primary School expressed his joy of joining other pupils in the get together and believes he will perform well in his exams. I did ask him what he aspires to be in life.  "I want to be a professional footballer in the near future as I believe I have the talent, and God willing one day I can also play for bigger teams like Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United,” says Fredrick.

15 year old Willis Nyabuto from Jamhuri primary is happy being part of Uweza family.  "I love to be part of  the Uweza team as I get to learn a lot from my teachers and I want to become a scientist when I finish high school so as I can discover earth and space” notes Willis.

The climax of the day was when Fidel Ouma, the Center’s Prefect, gave a small speech of encouragement to all present and encouraged them to be kind to each other and always value the motto of discipline.

What are children in Kibera grateful for?

Yesterday at their meeting, Thomas explained to the members of the Uweza Journal Club that Uweza supporters in the United States would be celebrating Thanksgiving, a day to reflect and give thanks. We asked them to think about and write down what they are thankful for.  Given the tough circumstances these children are living in, it's incredibly moving to see that most of them are thankful to be alive.  We are humbled by their response and reminded not to take anything for granted.

We are incredibly grateful to all of our supporters worldwide for supporting programs that are truly changing lives.  It is because of you that we are able to do everything that we do.  If you are celebrating today, Happy Thanksgiving!

Ready to Shine

Thomas Bwire is a Kibera resident and a radio journalist.  He currently works with a local FM station called Pamoja FM based in Kibera as a News editor. He joined the station in September 2007.  He has also had some extensive training in Holland with an international training in broadcasting journalism from Radio Nederland Training Center and Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) based in the Hague.

Thomas has recently joined the Uweza team to initiate a journalism club for youth. The journalism club will provide youth from Kibera the chance to learn valuable skills such as research, writing and photography.  They will be researching and writing pieces for their own periodic newsletter, which will provide them with a platform to learn and speak about issues and topics that are important to them. 

Thomas will also be a regular contributor to the Uweza blog.  Below is his first post about the first meeting of the Uweza journalism club.

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The afternoon weather was hot as I arrived at the Uweza Foundation gate at 2.45pm, with a mission to kick start the journalism class at the center. The center located at Karanja Road, shone with its blue colors painted on the walls. To welcome me was Mr.Moi the Program Manager in charge of the center, and as I sat in his office, we got to exchange greetings and catch up on how the day had been earlier.

Not later, some of the pupils started trickling into the compound some in pairs, while some came on their own. In no time, I headed to one of the classes and met my pupils eagerly waiting to hear from me.

First things first, I did start by greeting them and telling them a little bit about myself and this was followed by a simple exercise of knowing each other.  This is how it was done, pupils paired into two and asked their partner about themselves on issues ranging from their names, likes, dislikes and what they expect to learn while with the club. The response was amazing as the whole class got to know a new person that they had never known before. Some of them said how they love to eat fish, some love to travel and some wanted to be journalists and to read news while they finish school. "Amazing sentiments there," I thought to myself as we moved on.  The class had a total of 15 pupils ranging from ages 12 to 15years old.

After getting to know each other, suggestions for in house rules were put across and all agreed to abide by them, Here are some of the house keeping rules, perhaps to give you the better feel of things here in Kibera, "be patient, respect to people’s property, obey your teacher, co-operate, no chewing, no gossiping" and the one that stood out was "listening to each other."

Very insightful there as proposal to set the rules came from the participants themselves, and hopefully they will be followed to the latter. Day one presented the participants to get to know what news is with the following elements in storytelling,” who, what, why, when, where and how,” with practical example from one of the local daily newspaper as we read through each line to identify these elements.

  To close the day’s session, each participant had an opportunity to read one story to help to identify how the key news elements were used in stories. Time  flew so fast and as we winded up, many of the kids were reluctant to leave, but before they left, a simple assignment was given out, and here it comes, "write a simple story with not more than 100 words, but include the key news elements."

Look out for our next blog next week where we shall post some of the first ever written stories done by our Uweza Journalism Club.

milk & honey shoes for Uweza

Kate Mara has created a shoe for milk & honey and ALL of the proceeds from the sales of the shoes will go Uweza.  We are so excited and grateful to Kate for selecting us as her charity recipient and hope you will check out (and buy) her beautifully designed shoes!

Check out the shoes on milk & honey's website : http://www.milkandhoneyshoes.com/signature-collection/kate-uweza.html. 

Intern Blogging - Week 1

William Ochieng, is a Kenyan college student, studying Community Development at  The Kenya Polytechnic University College in Nairobi.   As part of his studies, he must complete an internship with an organization working on community development.

William started interning with Uweza two weeks ago.  We have been doing our best to keep him busy with interesting work and he has been a big help to us.  As part of the internship,  he will be writing weekly blog posts detailing his work and what he is learning.

Feel free to leave any questions, comments, or words of encouragement for William in the comments section!
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It has been a busy schedule for the last 2 weeks at Uweza Foundation. I have been able to interact with Kibera Agenda 4 Business Savings group members. It comprises of persons with integrity who are business oriented. The group deals with savings and loaning of funds to the group members. It is through loaning and savings that they are able to uplift their level of living standards through businesses to a comfortable life. In the group activities I was involved in calculating the total savings each person has saved and total loan given out.

I also met the parents of the sponsored children in the Uweza Sponsorship Program. The staff of the organization emphasized on the cleanliness of the children sponsored by the organization when going to school.  When the children are clean, they perform well in class and help the organization get a good reputation in the society at large. At the meeting I took minutes of the agenda which was a bit hectic because I couldn't memorize the parent's children's names.

During the Uweza Football team party, I took some photographs which was a fantastic day.  The team was position 1 at the Amani tournament.  Also I did some office work like arranging and filing of documents.

I have learned a lot of many things in the organization. First of all, people should join hands to form a large pool of resources in the Kibera microfinance through the Kibera Agenda 4 Business Savings to facilitate in the actualization of its dream.

Second, the organization is working to its level best to uplift the status of children by offering evening tuitions. This enables the children to ask questions to their tutors about what they didn't understand in the classroom.

There is also a good working relationship among the Uweza staff as all of them give time to express their news.

The organization responds immediately without hesitation to child's health and tuition fees. This is taking the child to hospital/chemist for medication.

I have also learned that children need to be given time to realize their talents through soccer and activities like drawing.