Age
10
Country of Residence
Kenya
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I go to the village every holiday and overtime noticed that children my age dont speak English neither Kiswahili which would seem an obvious language than English. They have a lot of creativity which is a great asset for navigating language and adding to the activities of working together around climate. I thought of making a centre where kids can read books , learn English and to put books based on the environment , because you find so much plastics and paper waste every where on the side of the road and i felt motivated of making a centre. My parents have been really supportive in building this idea including encouraging me to start small activities before the centre is fully up, including collecting books from friends that will start the centre library.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
We are lucky to do this centre in a village where many people are self organized in various social groups. The centres have been very effective at providing a platform to share the idea and get buy in and support from community members. Building this relationships at the beginning is very important for the support of the centre because we need to work together as volunteers for the sake of the children. Other places like the chief's office and churches have been helping us alot to spread word about the purpose of this centre and why they should support it.
How many people are on your team?
10
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
We have already asked friends and family to bring books that they do not use. We have a decent amount of different books that we have used over the holidays to conduct pilot reading activities. The kids thoroughly enjoy these activities and have to be reminded to go home because they never want to leave. The demand for these activities speaks for itself and provides a model that we can scale out to other nearby villages and markets though the holiday weekends. We have also setup a voluntary program team that helps to develop the activities
Project Category
My project is a brand new / emerging idea
Project Stage
Pilot-Stage (We’ve tried an activity or two)
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
NLC is a small centre, an idea in a remote village in the eastern past of Kenya. The idea is to progressively combine Literacy activities as the foundational aspect, arts for creativity of children and climate learning activities in the locality as holistic learning. In a remote village like this, many children of my age have very limited perspective and access to language activities so this effort is a response to this reality at the moment.
Project title
Nthagaiya Learning Centre (NLC)
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
The main problem is literacy limitations at the moment. In a world where children have to compete for opportunities of work and livelihood, its not fair that they will have to struggle with language. Even use of technology requires language mostly used a English. So my goal is to ensure children feel empowered and confident as they grow from here and they have fair chance at competing with others from urban cities. This will help the kids and the villagers.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
prefer not to use
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
The pressing need right now is to complete the basic infrastructure of the building under repair so that we can start off the library space. We are also preparing to do another book drive for collection of story books that will go to add to the current book stocks.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Its different from other programs because its a holistic learning centre that has never been done before in the area. I believe it will transform the future of the village and the lives of the kids growing up. There is real opportunity also to scale this idea as a model across the county over time.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
The idea is to set up a suitable place that all children can access to learn after school and through the weekend. This is a community ran space as a library facilitated by the older children as volunteers. We are slowly repairing an old building in the village through the help of friends and community members in the village. The community members assign to clean the place and someone to watch what the kids are doing also. And will make a big difference for the kids in their national examinations. With the support of a small grant, it would help us to complete the basic infrastructure that anchors the full program for the centre.
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
My parents and I are directly involved in the project. They have been supporting me to write for this project and organize activities. My grand parents have also come on board by providing space for the holiday pilot activities that we have attempted recently. Then the volunteer program team that works to build the programme and activities with some giving their time to support reading activities.
