© diana l. swanson, teresa wasonga, and andrew otieno, 2012 the jane adeny memorial school for...

© Diana L. Swanson, Teresa Wasonga, and Andrew Otieno, 2012

The Jane Adeny Memorial School for Girls, Kenya

This presentation is dedicated to the future of Kenya

and with joy in the Nobel Laureates of 2012

Leymah Gbowee Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Tawakkul Karman

and in Memory of 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate,

the late Prof. Wangari Maathai

The Mission & Goals of JAMSCreate “a school good enough for the richest, open

to the poorest” (Horace Mann)Be an innovative pedagogical model for the nationEmpower students to ask questionsShow that corporal punishment is unnecessaryCreate an active, collaborative learning

environmentShow that enriching the learning environment gets

good results (library, extracurricular activities)Empower girls to become women who participate

fully in the life of the nation

The Founding Class of 2014

The Class of 2015

JAMS Enrollment in 2012

• Form 1 (9th grade): 33• Form 2 (10th grade): 22• Increased from 12 to 55 in one year!

Some of the students’ experiences

• Lost her father to AIDS and now her mother is dying• Orphaned at age 5, lived with her poverty-stricken grandmother, roamed the countryside to find sugar cane to sell in order to buy food• Her widowed father went insane and now wanders the streets of the local village• Pushed her wheel-chair-bound father 6K to ask for help to go to school• Beaten by her father when she protested his beating of her mother• Lives on one meal a day at home

Poverty in Kenya

• Total population: 41.1 million people• 46% of total population lives below the national poverty line • 20% live on less than $1 a day • Men’s employment rate: 61.2%• Women’s employment rate: 49.1%

Education in Kenya

• 98% of children start primary school • 45% finish primary school• About 23% enter secondary technical training• 24% enter secondary school• 18.7% finish secondary school• 3% enter university

The “hidden curriculum”• Kenyan curriculum largely unaffected by women’s studies and gender-neutral curriculum development.• Girls in schools subjected to significantly higher levels of harassment, including sexual harassment, from students and from teachers, than boys.• “Teachers’ attitudes and behavior reveal lower expectations for adolescent girls, traditional assumptions about gender roles, and double standards about sexual activity.” Mensch and Lloyd, “Gender Differences in the Schooling Experiences of Adolescents in Low-Income Countries: The Case of Kenya,” Studies in Family Planning 29.2 (1998): 167-184.

Why educate girls?

They have the same existential value and the same right to develop their potential as boys.

Educating girls is also necessary to eliminating poverty, epidemics, and inequality worldwide.

“Investing in girls is . . . central to boosting development, breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty, and allowing girls, and then women—50 percent of the world’s population—to lead better, fairer and more productive lives.”World Bank President, Robert Zoellick

“ “Getting to Equal: How Educating Every Girl Can Help Break the Cycle of Poverty” <http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,,contentMDK:23009825~menuPK:282424~pagePK:64020865~piPK:149114~theSitePK:282386,00.html>

Return on Investment in the developing world

Women and girls return ca. 80% of the money invested in them to their families and communities.Men and boys return ca. 40%.

Source: Kurt Thurmaier, Professor of Public Administration, NIU, presentation to TeachGirlsGlobal, DeKalb, IL, April, 2011

The JAMS Campus

Nyanza ProvinceKenya

Nyanza is one of the smaller provinces of Kenya. Nyanza is relatively under-resourced due to the political history of the nation since independence from Britain in 1963.

NYANZA PROVINCE

2 kms and a 500 ft climb from the paved road to the school

Classrooms, Science Room, and Library

An English class discusses poetry

A memoir workshop in the library with a TeachGirlsGlobal volunteer

The Dormitory

The Dormitory

The Dining Hall

The Dining Hall

Guest House

The Kenyan Secondary School Curriculum

• Kiswahili• English• Geography• History• Mathematics• Physics• Chemistry

BiologyBusinessAgricultureChristian Religious

Education

These subjects are mandated and regulated by the national ministry of education.

Discussing a returned exam with Mr. Samson

JAMS results so farThe students speak up and ask questions

much more often than when they arrivedThe students express themselves in

English and Kiswahili much better than when they arrived

2012 final, cumulative exam results:12 students got As 16 students got Bs23 students got Cs 3 students got Ds

Recreation: Singing and dancing in the Dining Hall

Doing a jigsaw puzzle for the first time

The students play soccer every afternoon.

CampusSustainability

Farming the campusRainwater catchmentSolar power

Two of the students, happy and proud of their harvest of cow peas

Chickens provide eggs for Friday’s egg stew.

The school has a sealed septic system.

Students doing laundry with rain water

Students, staff, and friends harvesting maize

Plans for growth

Growth in enrollment

• a new class added each year until all four secondary school forms (grades) are filled• total enrollment planned to be between 120 and 160• additional teachers as enrollment grows• an administrator of residence life

Construction of facilities

• Teacher housing • More solar panels• Well ( to be drilled in January-February, 2013, supported by Rotary Clubs of Barrington and Morrison, Illinois)• Solar water heating system• Science building (3 laboratory classrooms)• More water tanks for rain catchment

Three years ago, the school site looked like this.MUCH can be accomplished in the next three years!

ASANTETHANK YOU