Seed: Students for Education Empowerment and Development

Here’s a brief snapshot of what Jenny, Alison and I have done in Kenya since my arrival on April 27th: Read more…

On our last day at Humwend, a SEED-sponsored student pleasantly surprised us with a thought-provoking poem he wrote.  While weak on the rhyming front, his words strongly speak to the inadequacies of the Kenyan government, and shed light on a main cause of the nation’s underdevelopment.  It goes like this:
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Media coverage of Africa is often skewed toward negative stories: famine, HIV/AIDS, wars, child soldiers, orphans, poverty. And reading back on our blog entries, our coverage is similarly skewed. It’s not a conspiracy to “keep Africa down” or a deliberate effort to focus on the negatives though; it’s just that the ordinary in Africa is like the ordinary everywhere, and hence not so much worth mentioning or writing about. Read more…

With the South African World Cup now over, there’s less football/soccer on TV but there’s certainly no less in the streets. Football is everywhere, and it’s unlike the sport I know in Canada. Here, kids play it on the dirt roads and in the dusty fields. They play it with whatever “ball” they can find, usually a collection of plastic bags tied together with string. Goal posts are shoes or bottles or sticks or plastic jugs. It’s quite fitting that an African country finally got the chance to host the tournament since it’s obviously a much-loved, much-played sport here. And maybe it’s because I’m not in South Africa but nearby, it seems like the tournament is really about the whole of Africa Read more…

Mary and I have had the opportunity to interview many of the guardians of SEED-sponsored students. As everyone has been very open and honest with their answers, the interviews have been a very interesting look at the daily lives of people here in Ng’ombe. Here are a few excerpts from some of the interviews: Read more…

I’ve finished reading a book by economist Jeffrey Sachs called The End of Poverty. The book was entirely interesting and informative, but one part I found most interesting was his description of various economic factors that can contribute to a thriving or failing economy. He’s careful to point out that one of these factors alone does not necessarily determine the rise or fall, but a combination certainly does. Read more…

In ancient times, all available land would have been used for agriculture, to grow food to sell or eat, and then in the Middle Ages, lawns looked like pasture fields from the Bible. It wasn’t until Tudor and Elizabethan Times that lawns became a social place for walking and gathering. At this time, lawns were made up of meadow plants. Then in the early 1600s during the Jacobean period, the close-cut English lawn became popular, and in the early 1700s, landscaped lawns were created. Read more…

The other day, we visited Humwend Principal Francis Akulu’s home for tea.  After a bumpy ride in the back of his truck to an authentic rural Kenyan home, we were greeted with open arms and smiling faces.  His family’s welcoming was no different from the one we receive each time we visit Humwend – full of gratefulness for the generosity of Canadians towards the Kenyan education system. Read more…

One of the more difficult things to accomplish in the internship is maintaining a balance between meeting the identified needs of the community and our own limited capacity. Being here makes the needs so real, so visceral – think of how much just a little bit of money for this could improve this situation, could make so and so’s life so much better, and all for just a little bit of money, why not, why shouldn’t we commit? How hard could it be? Read more…