The Vision Kenya Workshop

Posted by Michael Skye on Jun 13, 2006 in News

We just finished our second day with the children and I still haven’t written about how the worksho went yesterday… and we still haven’t posted photos! Soon, soon! Uploading the photos has been a challenge, but we’ll get them up SOON!

OK, so how is the workshop going?

Well, yesterday was the first day. After giving 100 1 125 students an overview of the workshop, about 45 of them opted to stay and play. We dove into a conversation about the challenges we all face around the world right now. Many of the Kenyan students assumed issues such as poverty were not a challenge for Americans.

We asked every student who shared to first say their name and something they liked to do. Each one of them volunteered what they wanted to be in life. There was one student, Ann, who I later learned is the leader of all the girls at the academy stood up and spoke about the issues that Kenyan women face and how she is going to be the one for them by becoming a journalist and drawing attention to the issues that matter. Another student, Cindy, shared about the challenges that single mothers in Kenya face, and was deeply moved by who she could be for them.

For many of the students it was the first time sharing their dreams publicly with their peers. Kenyan culture seems to be a more private one, where people don’t necessarily share as easily about their personal issues. When one young man by the name of Isaac declared himself to be the first African pope, his peers laughed at him. And they laughed whenever any of their peers voiced their dreams, until we called this to their attention. Who Robyn and I got to be for these youth were the ones who really saw them–really gave validity to their dreams.
By the end of the day, the students were deeply engaged. They were exploring what is really possible for them. We left them with an assignment to journal about their future by asking What if… What if… What if…?

Then today we launched into the second part of the workshop–exploring not just dreams but vision. We presented the idea of being guided not by a dream or an expectation of a parent or someone else, but by a VISION that deeply calls them to face anything in life. We looked to everyday heroes in our lives to see them more deeply than perhaps we ever had before. We looked to see what it was it must be like to be them… what they must stand in the face of day in and day out, and what it is they stand for. Then once deeply moved by them, we look to ourselves to see what we can see for ourselves by standing like them in our lives.

I shared first about Robyn as my hero–all that I’ve seen her stand in the face of, and what I see her standing for. Then what I can see for myself by walking that path.

As shy as the students had been thus far, I was unsure we’d get anyone to volunteer to share this emotional exercise in front of their peers. But a 20-year old woman by the name of Christie stood up and shared about her mother, who had become single and then struggled through family criticism and poverty to stand for each of her children to complete their education. She shared how even though she and her siblings had to delay their highschool education for years at a time, they were one by one completing their education. Christie then shared her vision from seeing herself stand for being what her mother had, and in the face of all that her mother had. She was deeply moved, and most of the students were as well. In fact, Cyndy came forward to comfort her at the first sign of the emotion. Christie wanted to complete the exercise though, and set the example for everyone else.
After today’s session, I spoke with Beth, one of the teachers who had sat in on the workshop. She was lit up! She saw things in these students she had never seen before, and saw how she could come to know them at a deeper level now. She shared her vision for having each child in Secondary and even Primary classes finding their own vision at an early age. She just couldn’t stop talking about how important the work was that we were doing and how glad she was that we were there. I can see Beth being the one to carry this work on with the kids after we are gone, and I introduced the idea of this work becoming a part of the curriculum.

Later we spent more time with the young orphans. They are so damn cute, so alive, so eager to smile and laugh.

Before we boarded the van to head back to our guest house two of the highschool boys who are boarding at the school asked me to stay with them and the others in the dormitory. I may take them up on that tomorrow night. It’s really such a new experience for me to work with young people and people in general who are so open and eager to learn and grow.

OK, that’s it for now. I am going to see about getting those photos uploaded!

Please post your comments!