KAYEC

            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 4^th 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