So far I LOVE the NGO
(Non-Government Organization) that I will be working with for the next two
years in Namibia. KAYEC (Katutura Youth Enterprise Centre) is an after school
organization for children between the ages of 12 and 18. These kids are
absolutely amazing. Every day they are faced with so many hardships, and yet
they are still striving to do better in school and become leaders. It’s
completely humbling to just sit and watch an older member voluntarily teach the
younger members to read or to watch all of the children come together and
facilitate an entire program for the community by themselves. Having worked
with children of this age group and socio-economic level in both America and
Namibia, it is definitely interesting to note the vast differences
distinguishing the children between the two cultures. I cannot wait to set up a
pen pal system with these children and a 4th grade class in America.
The cultural exchange will be amazing to see.
Since starting at KAYEC I have
personally facilitated two trainings with the children. One consisted of a fact
or myth game aimed at teaching the kids about sexual and reproductive health
and the other was a leadership training. I was genuinely surprised at my own
ability to explain the different aspects of sexual and reproductive health to a
group of middle school aged children from a different culture, whose preferred
language is not English in a manner that they would understand it. The
leadership training went extremely well, also. However, explaining the
different types of leadership proved to be quite a challenge. They simply could
not decipher the meanings between Democratic, Authoritative, and Laissez-faire
leadership styles. There’s only so many ways I can break the information down,
but in the end I think they understood it…. I think. Seeing as how all of these
children are already leaders in so many ways, the rest of the training was a
breeze.
In
closing, I will leave you with some pictures and a video of the children I’m
lucky enough to work with everyday J
