They Are The Future

The children are always the brightest parts of my days here in Kenya, for they are seemingly everywhere with their unbridled enthusiasm. I have been visiting schools and teaching classes virtually every weekday for two months and I have learned a lot about the education system in Kenya as well as the promise of the youth. Unfortunately, I am visiting schools and kids in the slums of Nairobi where opportunities are scarce and the promise of youth is sometimes not achieved. I volunteer for an organization called Education for Life that aims to teach the kids life skills and promote strong character development. Just like the words of Abraham Lincoln say, “in whatever you do, be the best you can be”. We are trying to give the children the tools to do this, but the culture of poverty can be hard to overcome.

                This culture starts with the schools we visit. Many of them are informal schools, ones that serve the children and communities that cannot or go to the packed government run schools, the schools with purported “free” education that do not reach parts of the poorest slums. Informal schools run by churches or funded by foreign governments I have visited are as small as the Great Hall in the SLC, with 250 kids cramming into tiny classrooms and the noise level too loud to learn in. Corruption in the government is hurting the government schools as well. I went to a press conference last week led by Kenyan and international NGOs that condemned the Kenyan government from losing around 60 million US Dollars within the Ministry of Education by their officials. This corruption scandal has undermined Kenya’s education system and international reputation, to the point where England has pulled their funding of education to the government and Canada, among other countries, is threatening to do so. Meanwhile, the average Kenyan child is in need of better education to make the most of their life.

                The children of Nairobi’s slums are extremely affected by economics, resulting in the reality of child labour. I have heard people here openly acknowledge that while child labour is wrong, it is practiced because people often have no other choice. Children work at stalls and participate in the informal economy because they either need to provide for their family and for younger siblings or to pay for their schooling. A high school my friend volunteers at specifically caters to youth in the area whose parents cannot pay school fees, either through lack of funds or not being around. The school is subsidized by local charities and the teachers themselves, but it is not unusual for teachers to walk by their students on the street on a school day because they need to work in order to go to school the next term. These youth understand the importance of education; it is an opportunity for a better life.

                Sometimes all of these obstacles seem too big to be overcome but then I start thinking of the positives. One of the biggest is that the youth often take it upon themselves to change. I am involved in a program that teaches entrepreneurship skills to youth and these youth are grasping this opportunity to gain new skills and build a foundation for their future. They are encouraged to change their lives and those will be the citizens of Kenya that will be important to the country’s development over the next thirty years. But can the lack of opportunity still provide encouragement elsewhere? What is stronger, the human capacity to live in community with each other or the animalistic instinct to survive by any means necessary? What will the children of tomorrow do?