Archive for March, 2009
Daraja in Unison
Hello from the Daraja Academy campus. It’s Friday morning and the campus is buzzing, preparing for the end of the first term. Incredibly Term 1 will wrap up with 4 days of intensive examinations—starting Monday morning, the girls of Daraja Academy will sit through 9 two-hour assessments in Physics, English, Algebra, Business Studies, Swahili, Biology, History, Chemistry, and Music.
Based on what I have seen in the classroom, I would be very surprised if the students didn’t shine on their exams. Our small class sizes, coupled with weekly tutoring sessions with the MS Kenya/Global Platform volunteers gives them an academic advantage they’ve never had before.
The girls have also requested to have a going away party/talent show on the last night of the term. The idea started a few weeks ago when the Daraja students were invited to the Global Platform (the fancy name for the 2 dorms and 3 rondavels on the southwest corner of Daraja’s campus where the MS Kenya volunteers from Denmark stay) to watch and learn traditional Maasai songs and dances. Our students LOVED IT! The girls were up and dancing regardless of tribe. In fact, thus far I believe Daraja’s strength is the eagerness of our girls to learn, and teach, about Kenya’s diverse tribes.
Catherine's solo during traditional Maasai song.
The day after the dancers visited, I heard a quiet, but beautiful tune coming from the girls’ dorm. Looking into the lounge, a few girls were completing a science project while 2 others lay across two of the couches reading. The sound was coming form the direction of the students’ rooms.
Between 6:30 and 7pm, before the generator has been turned on, the dorm is very oddly lit. The rooms on the eastern side of the building are almost totally dark. While those catching the last rays of the suns’ descent on the western side glows like liquid gold… and that is where the music was coming from.
The only sunlit room large enough to hold 10+ students is the communal bathroom. Betty, one of the students, decided to teach a group of students a traditional Meru song and dance that looked similar to a very complicated congo line. The girls wound in, out, and around the sinks and showers calling out and responding like old pros to a song they’d only just learned.
I was so impressed that at the end, I clapped and bellowed “All Right!”, which sent the students screaming, shocked and embarrassed, into a dozen different directions. However once calm returned, they were abuzz:
“Mr. D, Mr. D, we want to do a show!”
“Mr. D, Marylene, Emily, and I want to write a play!”
“Mr. D, Mr. D, Mr. D…”
So as it stands—Daraja Academy’s first talent night will happen one week from today after 26 girls, who only 3 months ago never thought they would be in secondary school, complete their finals. Girls will sing ancient songs using words they only recently learned. Students from historically hostile tribes will move their feet together in unison. And in unison they will smile, and I will cry, and the world will be right.
Thank you for supporting Daraja Academy.
Jason Doherty
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (1) : Mar 27th, 2009
Daraja’s own global summit
Tuesday evenings, after the dining hall empties, is a wonderful time on Daraja’s campus. The sun drops below the gently rolling hills just west of school and the air actually glows a warm amber. Baboons can be heard in the dense trees by the river settling into their roosts for the night while neighboring Maasai children fan out across the rolling grassland surrounding their boma to collect the last straggling goats and sheep.
It is during this Tuesday twilight hour that the volunteers from Denmark visiting Daraja tutor the Kenyan students. I personally cannot say enough good things about this group of Scandinavian twenty-something’s. They are passionate, intelligent and very eager to make a difference in the world. They are very bright and simply put, our students love the tutoring sessions.
The Daraja students get to choose the class they feel they need the most help in while the Danish volunteers decide the subject they will tutor based on their academic strengths. Interestingly, the sessions balance out very well. A group of five Daraja students and two Danes are working on biology in the science lab, while seven girls and three Danish volunteers are breaking down the structure of a “3 paragraph essay” in the library.
Before I sat down to type this, I walked outside the classroom block watching unseen from the dark into the light classrooms as something perfect happened. It is true, Daraja Academy has only been running for three weeks, but what is happening is truly spectacular. Young people from all over Kenya are sitting, reading, talking and laughing with young people from Europe. They are together, they are sharing, and all of them, in one way or another – are learning.
Perhaps, in a little less than a month, when the Danish volunteers move on to their sites in South Africa and Uganda, contact between these two groups of young people will be lost, but my guess is the memories they have created will not be.
Filed under From the Founder, Misc, News, Students : Comments (0) : Mar 18th, 2009
A Very Daraja Moment
After breakfast and lunch, on their way back to the classroom blocks, the girls walk past a huge island of vegetation. Orange, purple and coral colored bougainvilleas adorn an enormous section of cacti. Whether it is one or 20 is hard to know since they have been growing together for years. About 15 feet above the ground beautiful white flowers about the size of a child’s hand begin to dot the stovepipe-shaped cactus stalks.
After ringing the bell that releases the students from 6th period, I met up with several of the teachers to discuss the morning’s lessons. Usually our students rush to the dining hall in an attempt to commandeer one of the front spots in the lunch line. One student was not in a rush.
Benedictor is a young lady who grew up in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. She has a quick sense of humor and innate leadership skills. On this day, she had rooted herself right in the middle of our route to the dining hall. Timing is everything and Benedictor timed her question well, waiting just a little longer than most of the semi-nervous students would have, staring up at the cactus, she asked her query.
“Where did the flowers go? They were there this morning, but now they have gone. Why?” She contorted her face into a questioning knot after releasing that last ‘why.’
Teachers often speak of turning the students into life long learners, which is basically “education speak” for curious. Growing up in the clutch of humanity that is the slum of Kibera, Benny hadn’t had the opportunity to be curious about surrounding plants or animals. But now, she was curious.
Our resident biology teacher and plant expert, Mr. Charles nearly broke into a run to cover the remaining five feet between him and our student. “What a wonderful question!”
He proceeded to explain to Benedictor that in the early part of the day, the flowers open allowing insects the chance to eat and thusly pollinate the cactus and surrounding cacti. However, in very dry areas as the day grows hotter, the flowers close so that they do not lose extra moisture.
The answer sunk in and seemed to make sense to the budding naturalist, who then turned to me, smiled and said, “Mr. D, your shoe is not tied.”
Though classes have only been going for a week, there are some girls at Daraja who are WELL on their way to being life long learners.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (3) : Mar 11th, 2009
Daraja Academy Peninsula Fundraiser
Tags: daraja academy, fundraiser
Filed under Events :
Comments (4) :
Mar 10th, 2009
The Highlight of Week I
During the first week of actual classes, Daraja Academy was lucky enough to host Marin based artist/conservationist Brenda Sherburn. On campus for 5 days, Brenda taught the students about composition, art theory and how to use several types of media. She also opened many of the girls’ eyes to the immense value and natural beauty of the surrounding countryside and the role they can personally play protecting it.
But, the highlight of her visit for the students and myself as headmaster, had to be the three-hour nature walk at the El Karama wildlife conservancy. Brenda provided the girls with art materials so the could stop and make sketches of the animals they encountered while on the evening walk… and they did encounter animals. The vehicles returned just after sunset and poured out 20 plus giggling, chattering, excited Kenyan teenagers, each with a series of sketches and many more stories about their excursion into “the bush.”
After herding them straight into the dining hall for dinner, the roar began. “Teacher, teacher…” “Jenni, Jenni…” “Mr. D, let me tell you!” Finally, Jenni and I gave in, realizing that controlling that degree of excited energy was a kin to turning the tide. We heard broken stories of zebras and impala, ostriches and a bull elephant that had been spotted in a glade just below the ridge the Daraja students were walking on. They encountered and sketched a huge tawny eagle, saw the leftovers of a gazelle a leopard had eaten the night before in the branches of an acacia 20 feet above their path, and much, much more. “Mr. Doherty, did you know that a giraffe has her baby, while she is standing up?” “We saw a herd of zebra up close, their black stripes hold heat in and their white ones push it away, that causes a breeze like the air conditioning in a matatu (mini-van bus)!”
Aside from the pure joy that bubbled from each student upon her return, the most exciting and rewarding part of the expedition for me as head master was how well it integrated into Daraja’s curriculum. That day the students had been prepped in geography class to watch for and identify different types of formations they were to encounter. The girls incorporated information learned during their biology lesson into the five-paragraph essay they wrote about the nature walk in English class the next day. It was incredible because they learned a lot and loved every second of it. In fact one of the girls asked me after dinner, “Can we do that every week?”
Those of us in the US figure that growing up in Kenya, mast of our students see wild animals all the time. This just isn’t so. Many of our girls, especially those coming from Nairobi have never seen a wild animal. Cats and dogs, goats, donkeys and cows are the sum total of exotic fauna that the average Daraja Academy student has seen. This is what makes the location of our campus on the Laikipia plateau and our commitment to educate our students about the beauty and value of their environment. Driving only 20 miles north the students are able to observe and relate to thousands of species of plant, bird and animal.
The day after the nature walk, Brenda and the students completed their art projects, which were spectacular. Each one unique, they really provide a look into the different personalities of the girls. What makes this even more incredible is the fact that upon return to the US, Brenda will be creating cards with the girl’s art on them, which will really be a treat for our students, however, that’s not all. The proceeds collected from the cards will be donated back to Daraja Academy where it will benefit our students all over again.
From the bottom of my heart, my wife’s and that of our staff here at Daraja Academy and the board of directors in the US:
Thank you Brenda!!!
Filed under From the Founder : Comments (4) : Mar 9th, 2009
The Daraja Academy Photo Album
Make sure to check the new photos recently added to the Flickr album! They are amazing…
Have a great weekend!
Filed under Misc, News, Photos : Comments (2) : Mar 5th, 2009
A Brand New Baby School
Congratulations family and loved ones!
It is with an extremely proud heart and a deep sense of gratitude, that I can announce that a brand new baby school has joined the world. On the 2nd of March 2009 at 8:00am 26 girls began their first day of secondary school at the Daraja Academy 20 kms Northwest of Nanyuki, Kenya. Under the loving tutelage of Mrs. Mwangi: math, business studies and geography, Ms. Catherine: English, Swahili and music, Mr. Charles: biology, chemistry and physics, headmaster of Mr. D (Doherty doesn’t exactly roll off the African tongue) teaching history and government, Ms. Mary: Christian religious studies, Ms. Amena: Islamic religious studies and Andy Harley teaching PE and organizing the library… we have a living, breathing, laughing school!!!
Without the tireless and frankly courageous support of our incredible board, family and supporters there is no way this dream could have taken shape. So after ignoring cynics, three years of HARD work, tens of thousands of miles of travel and the support of countless friends and family, there is a Daraja Academy, it is on the map and it is open!
On February 26th the young ladies who had been picked to become Daraja Academy’s inaugural class began trickling into Nanyuki town from locations across Kenya. Girls traveled from the arid town of Makindu near the coast. They journeyed across the Great Rift Valley from the region of Pokot in the far western highlands. Three of them woke at 4 am with one of their mothers in the slum of Kibera and walking an hour in the dark to Nairobi’s enormous bus depot to get here. They were all excited, a little bit nervous and all of them are totally amazing.
By 3pm last Thursday all had arrived. They were assigned roommates, dorm rooms, uniforms and given a few hours to get settled. The girls are arranged three or four girls to a room. At Daraja we view Kenya’s tribal diversity as a positive and make every effort to celebrate it rather than ignore it. The students are arranged so that no two girls sharing the same tribal mother tongue are roomed together. So in any room you might find a Kamba, Luhya, Kuria and Boran boarding together. We thought that this might take some adjusting, but were very wrong. Girls from opposite sides of the country were literally holding hands walking to the dining hall the first night. After all of the bad press Kenya received last years concerning violent tribal clashes seeing these young women bond so quickly was a dream come true.
During the first few days before classes started, the girls played soccer and netball, they sang songs and had a Daraja Dance party (including a few heated rounds of musical chairs to the tunes of the Black Eyed Peas), they checked out books from the growing school library that had been donated by so many Daraja supporters, had two movie nights where they watched Beauty and the Beast and Step Up respectively and basically got to know each other and the campus.
Now that our laptop has been vaccinated and cured of its nasty virus (cross your fingers) blogs will appear much more regularly. Thank you for believing in us as well as your understanding. Please check out our next few blogs about the beginning of classes and Marin artist Brenda Shernbum’s time with the students.
Thanks for your support.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (2) : Mar 4th, 2009
