Koreans and Kenyans Working for Children's Education

Koreans and Kenyans Working for Children's Education

July 20, 2011

During July, 2o South Korean volunteers and 18 Kenyan volunteers worked together to improve the library and the green farm of the Children's Garden Home and School in the suburban areas of Dagoretti, Nairobi in Kenya, in order to create useful spaces for knowledge access and community agriculture for 300 children and youth. 

From June 29 to July 12, 20 volunteers from Chungju National University in South Korea and 18 volunteers from the Nairoby Rotary Club and local universities with the support of Service For Peace in Kenya and South Korea,  completed the equipping of the  DreamCatcher library we initiated in November last year. The volunteers placed desks and installed electricity connection in the library. The DreamCatcher library initiative, a global initiative of SFP, aims to create decent learning spaces for knowledge access in the rural schools of vulnerable communities around the globe. 

In addition to working on competing the library, the Kenyan and Korean volunteers built a greenhouse in the School to help the school ensure high quality nutrition for the kids and create food security.

The Green House Garden is a focus project of SFP in Kenya, which has the goal to teach and empower children and youth to put in practice techniques of gardening to prevent food crisis in their homes and enrich their daily diet. 

At the same time, the local and international volunteers implemented educational workshops for the  children in both schools on basic hygiene, first aid, arts and crafts. The Korean volunteers donated toothbrushes, balloons, crayons, books and balls to the students. They also donated some foodstuffs to Bethel Primary School located in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, the largest slum in the world.

"It was interesting to see how people from different continents could come together and work as a team to achieve so much in spite of their diverse cultural and racial differences," commented Esther Mugo, a Kenyan volunteer. 

According to Philbert Seka, the regional director of SFP in Africa, the Greenhouse will be used as a model to train local farmers to incorporate the techniques of green agriculture on their lands to introduce more fruits and vegetables in the community diet, and reduce the local food crisis. 

For more information about SFP in Kenya visit: www.serviceforpeace.org/kenya