Exchanging Ideas

by Rebecca Musanya and Nicholas Gisemba

Sunday 25th March gave an opportunity for the Uweza journalism club to visit Children of Kibera, one of the non-governmental organizations situated in Olympic Estate, Kibera for an exchange joint program.  Upon our arrival in the afternoon, we were welcomed by one of the staff members, Prisca Mutemi . We waited for a few minutes before we got divided into two groups of boys and girls known as Lit World Club.

Together with the female members of our club, we were taken to one of the classrooms that had girls who were having their afternoon session. Today’s topic was about the seven pillars of a girl child.
The session was interesting as I got to learn that girl child, self, sisterhood, and hope are some of the pillars we need to have at all times as young people in the Kibera community since many challenges are encountered by girls. The need to be empowered with proper information is all it takes to help girls overcome temptations of getting themselves into un- healthy relationships and getting to know how to take care of oneself in cases of defilement.

Lit World Member gives insight into their sessions

 On their part we also had an opportunity to get to share what we do as a journalism club. Our meetings are every Sunday, and we do have news paper review sessions, a task to get one to know the kind of news happening around us and also globally. We also do verbal reporting of current news from Kibera so as everybody in the club gets to know what past news events took place in Kibera.
Later on we had a few fun game activities which I led and everyone enjoyed learning something new from each party.

Rebecca from Uweza teaching a fun game

 On the boy’s side, sessions too were held separate from the girls, under the care of a male teacher. The boys aged between ages 6 to 14 years were gathered outside and undertaking a simple task of writing what they were seeing. A few minutes later we all gathered in one of the empty classrooms and shared information about our journalism club as we also got to know what they do.

Uweza Journalism Club member shares his experience

One amazing story was from Kennedy Oluoch from Soweto Academy, a class seven pupil at Spurgeon Academy, he noted that he is assured of a meal every Sunday when he comes to Lit World Club.

The day came to an end with some food being served to us (Githeri) mixture of maize and beans.

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The authors of this story, Rebecca and Nicholas, are members of the Uweza Journalism Club.