Kasana School at New Hope

Joey was assigned to do classroom observations and fill out assessment forms for each of the teachers at the Primary School, then meet with them for a follow-up session and give feedback.   He of course enjoyed being in the school and observing the lessons at the various grade levels, but it was so awkward for him to “critique” them, especially since he is a mazungu (white man) and they are all Ugandans….who is to say the white man coming from outside knows more than them or has better teaching methods, etc.  Also many of them have taught longer than he has, so it has really been hard for him, but most of the teachers have been really gracious and it’s just ended up being more of a discussion with a fellow colleague than him imparting any sort of superior knowledge.  He liked being at the Primary because he got to spend more time with our 5 youngest kids that we sponsor…he was in each of their classrooms to observe, got to play with them at recess, give extra hugs every chance he got AND he even got to substitute teach (spur of the moment) one afternoon!

In Robinah and Sandra's Classroom. Robinah was in Rashida's class, but got held back and had to repeat a year.

Sandra (our youngest girl we sponsor) eating lunch all by herself.  She is extremely shy and introverted , rarely talks or smiles and comes from the most desperate homelife of all the day students we sponsor.  It's been so hard to get her to open up and interact with us.  She will let us hold her hand and hug her and pull her onto our lap. We are giving the social worker money to buy her a mattress (she sleeps on the floor). When we did the home visit her grandmother asked us to take Sandra with us back to America!

Lunch Break

Christopher and Rosemary...our 2 kids in S4 (Senior 4 class...will be doing their Investment Year next year)



Rashida on her lunch break.

Zephaniah and Isa's classrom (they are all best buds)!

Susan and Rosemary....our lovely school girls!

The school here is much nicer than the slum school in Nairobi…the desks are in good condition, the benches are wider, they have lots of colorful visual aids hanging around the room.  One great need they have is a laminator, because they make all their posters by hand and of course they don’t last.  If any of our teacher friends want to pool their money for a laminator let us know!  They are also collecting funds to stock the Primary Library.  Joey is in charge of doing an Amazon order (all the books have to be approved and screened for cultural appropriateness) so if anyone wants to donate money to go towards purchasing new books let us know.