Background Information about our Trip to Kenya

When Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM) heard of our interest in a short term mission trip, Don's experience working with the Somali community in Toronto and Joy's career in teaching, they quickly approached us about going to Nairobi, Kenya , to work with the Somali refugees. We will be departing on November 6, 2008 and returning to Toronto on Decemberr 9, 2008. We will be travelling KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

Erica and Aaron Kenny are the CBM field staff who are working with the Somali community in Kenya. They have three children, Tristan ( 9), Emma ( 6) and Ava (20 months). They will be our hosts while we are in Nairobi. We will be working with them at the Eastleigh Community Centre in Eastleigh, a suburb of Nairobi.

The Eastleigh Community Centre ( ECC) is celebrating it's 50th Anniversary this year. The Presbyterian Church of East Africa established the Centre. It operates on their church compound as an outreach ministry to the people of the Mathare Valley and Eastleigh communities. The people living in the Eastleigh and Mathare Valley communities are extremely poor and disadvantaged. Many families have settled there after fleeing the violence in Somalia. CBM and the Kenny's started to work at the ECC in the fall of 2007.

The Eastleigh Community Centre has a school on the property with about 350 students, 40% of them being Somali. All the students come from very poor backgrounds and need a lot of encouragement to learn. The students start school at 7:00 AM and leave about 4:00 PM. There are 60 staff members at the centre including 12 teachers, a number of social workers, trade instructors and office staff. The centre teaches students from grades 1 to 8 and offers many trade courses for the parents including hair dressing, sewing and fashion design, hospitality, pottery, automotive, electrical and secretarial.

English and Swahili are the primary languages spoken at the Community Centre. The children are taught in English. Aaron and Erica are running an ESL program for the Somali mothers as most speak no English.

The Kenny's have arranged for us to assist in the classrooms at the school in November. We will have the freedom to choose what ages and subjects to work with. We will be using the curriculum that the school follows so won't need to take any supplies from home . We will also have an opportunity to assist the Kenny's with their ESL program. From December 1 to 3, while the students are on their year end vacation break, we will provide professional development/ training sessions for the teachers.

We have been asked to provide training on "cooperative learning" since that concept of learning is not used very much in the school. We are also considering facilitating some sessions on "how to engage and encourage children in learning". Fortunately we have three weeks to observe and share with the teachers in the classroom leading up to the training workshops so we may decide to do something very different in the end.