Africa surprises at every step. The residences full of luxury contrast, even harder, to mud huts in a bush without electricity, water, bed, or door.
However, attempts are being made to meet the challenges of everyday life. This year’s situation didn’t favor learning. Students suffered from a lack of teacher care, learning materials, a place to do their homework, time for learning, and the exams. The “remote” school was the only form of education for those students who had laptops and access to the Internet.
This education way tried to be adopted by some educational institutions in Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, or Tanzania.
Some of our students received particular learning materials at home, or they were required to work remotely. In this case, they had to send their works to a teacher via e-mail. It concerned mainly college, high school students, and some examination classes in Cameroon and Kenya.
Of course, it didn’t apply to every school.
This situation also affected the children from the Nakuru orphanage. They attend a few different schools, but they have only one laptop. [Here is an appeal – if you have a notebook in an excellent condition which you can donate to our pupils in Africa and Asia, we will be much obliged. Please ask for details by e-mail. ]
From Monday to Friday, at lunchtime (usually between 10 am and 2 pm), the children took turns with their homework. They also had extracurricular activities on Friday afternoons because
Regina and Steve wanted them to keep fit and enjoyed learning. Timothy prepared a particular project for the school based on charcoal. Esther took part in the school’s talent show and crafted her braided artworks. Everyday life wasn’t a simple one(but we got used to it), for orphanages were under close supervision, and there was isolation. It was forbidden to visit and leave the place of residence. After February moving to a newly built orphanage, they had their crops, vegetables, dairy goats and started the yogurt production. These things allowed them to survive the pandemic weeks. They also received funding under the “Food Package 2020” project, donated by our Donors (I WANT TO BUY A PACKAGE – CLICK)
On September 8, when the schools were still closed, Regina was woken up in the morning by quiet conversation and laughter. All children dressed quietly in their school uniforms and stood ready, demanding to return to their classes :) There was a lot of joy that day!
The good news is that on October 12, children from grades 4, 8, and Sixt Form(exam classes) will return school. Whereas the rest students will come back between October 26 and November 2. We hope the learning will be back to normal.
Most children(except for ours from Nakuru) were deprived of education for over seven months. Therefore, the Kenyan government decided that the last two semesters of 2020 should be repeated at the cost of shorter recesses(i.e., vacation between them). In Kenya, there are three semesters in one calendar year. It will soon start the second semester. At the beginning of 2021, there will be the third shorter semester of 2020. And during 2021, three semesters will be up to date though with truncated weeks and breaks between them. We can dispute whether it is a good or bad decision. From one side, the children will rework the whole learning material at the cost of their vacation. The other side is that they have shorter holidays. However, it is precious that the decision has been made, and Kenya’s people accepted it.
In Cameroon, children returned to school in October. However, in Uganda, Tanzania, and Angola, the situation still depends on the region. Nepal is in isolation and is waiting for the governmental decision.
University and college graduates, elderly students, and missionaries have taken over teachers’ role in Cameroon for many months. They held regular classes for interested local schools’ students. In many cases, these were remedial classes. Traditionally, they also conducted camps in small groups to avoid a large number of students and masks. Extracurricular activities are described in this post:
Below, education in Cameroon during the epidemic.
We encourage you to join the Adoption. The children are still waiting, and some people had to resign from the care this year due to losing their jobs. The fate of the children is in Your hands.
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