Lasallian Reflection
Well done to all our outgoing Sixth Year pupils who participated in the Lasallian Developing Worlds Project over the summer. Here is a reflection from one of the groups:
In the summer of 2018 Lasallian World Projects sent volunteers out to 8 building and teaching in India, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya to help build education provision for the young people in these countries. We participated in the Nyeri, Kenya project and had an incredible, eye opening experience.
The work began nearly a year before we left. We had to fundraise for travel costs, our accommodation and building materials when we got there. Organising fundraisers and sponsored events were a new kind of responsibility none of us have faced before and helped prepare us for our time in Kenya.
St Mary’s School in Nyeri, Kenya, already has a strong foundation, with a nursery and junior school for all, – including street children they rescue, children whom live in the slums a stone’s throw from campus,- and a high performing secondary school. Our project was to begin the building of a four-storey building which will be used as halls and could be turned into classrooms or dormitories if necessary. This will allow St Mary’s to take in more fee-paying students and in turn fund the street children programme.
Our average work day was 8-4:30/5 o’clock and consisted of a lot of digging and moving soil and materials around the building site. We also did small more skilled jobs such as sawing metal rods and mixing cement. Over the course of the five weeks we completed the foundations and started putting in supports and a ceiling, preparing for the first floor. It was a lot of hard work and very repetitive. As always it was a struggle to get up in the morning and our meals were simple and predictable. It was important to find joy and keep in mind the reason we were there. After work and at the weekends we spent a lot of time playing football, basketball, dancing and all sort of activities with the students, we also helped them with their studies in the evening. This meant that most working days were 14 hours long, now we almost know what it’s like to be a teacher at St Ninian’s!
Our accommodation was simple but did the job. A sink, kettle, two-hob stove, a few benches and a table made up the main living space. We had bunk beds to sleep in and showers and toilets in the house. For the first few weeks it was cool during the day and even colder at night, which was not helped by our normally freezing cold showers. Everyday tasks such as washing clothes and preparing meals was not as convenient and took easily twice as long as it would at home. These simple conditions did make us appreciate what we had at home and we knew this was more than what most had in Nyeri and help us empathise a little with their permanent living conditions.
The bond we made with each other and the other members of our group was formidable. Working and living together in cramped and simple living conditions encouraged us to build relationships with each other, making the project more enjoyable. We also built good bonds with a few of the older students helping them with their studies in the evening, and some of the younger staff members who took us under their wing both within school grounds and when we left to go into town. These friendships we have built will hopefully last a lifetime.
Each of us have experienced and witnessed things that will stay with us for the rest of our lives, some happily so, although other moments were quite harrowing. We visited the homes of some of the nursery children in the slums across the road from the school and were escorted by staff at the school. One seven-year-old boy who lived in the school during term time found his ‘shack’ was empty when he went home for the holidays. His grandmother had abandoned it two months earlier, either looking for work, or thinking he would be better off staying at school permanently. We were told this happens quite regularly and while the school would never put the younger children back on the streets they then need to fund their living all year round. This visit reinforced why the work the Lasallian Projects is important and needed.
In Kenya, a Catholic education is highly valued both by the communities and the students. The boys of a catholic faith willingly went to mass at least once a week and used the chapel on school campus regularly. They were also proactive in their faith and often discussed their faith with us. A lot of them found comfort in their faith, helping them deal with their disadvantage backgrounds and giving them belief in both God and themselves for their future.
Overall, Lasallian was an incredibly valuable and inspiring experience and an opportunity of a lifetime. We would like to thank all those that contributed to our fundraising efforts, and all those involved with Lasallian World Projects.
– Jade Baille, Niamh Miller, Romy Edgar and Niamh Docherty
View more photos here.
