WUNRN
Kenya – Mobile Schools Provide Education for Rural & Nomadic Girls
Girls bond during a school break in Northern Kenya.
TRF/Kagondu Njagi
By Kagondu Njagi
LAISAMIS, Kenya, July 15 (Thomson Reuters
Foundation) - At 16 years of age, Nagirasia Lengima is already a mother of two.
But parenthood doesn't stop her from indulging in her latest passion: school
Run by non-profit groups, the schools bring
learning to girls whose families are forced to move around the region to
survive.
In Laisamis village, Marsabit County, at a
school run by the Nairobi-based development charity Adeso, it is Lengima's turn
to demonstrate what she has picked up from the morning session.
After playing around with some numbers on the
chalkboard, she elicits cheers from the 59 other pupils in the class as she
produces the answer with a double stroke.
"Mathematics and Kiswahili are my
favourite subjects," said Lengima. "I want to go into business in the
future."
But circumstances are conspiring against her.
Teachers have largely abandoned the area to escape sporadic attacks by Islamist
militant group Al Shabaab.
And increasingly erratic weather often pushes
pastoralist families away from their settlements in search of water and
grazing, limiting children's access to formal education.
Temperatures in Northern Kenya can reach over
30 degrees Celsius, and the region regularly suffers from both drought and
heavy rainfall.
Adeso works with the weather to give girls
access to informal schooling which otherwise may have been impossible.
"The school calendar is based around
rainfall patterns," said Saadia Maalim Mohamed, project officer with
Adeso, which teaches 300 girls between the ages of 13 and 18 in Laisamis
village and runs several other mobile schools around Kenya.
"Learning takes place during the rainy
season when labour demand on the children is low and movement of communities is
minimal."
DEFYING THE ODDS
According to officials, Marsabit County reports
the worst education indicators in Kenya, with literacy levels at just 20
percent and poverty at 92 percent.
Less than 15 percent of girls over the age of
six have ever attended school, and of those who do, most end up dropping out.
With few options for a better life, girls usually marry young to start
families.
"In more settled communities it is usually
boys who are sent to school," said Jonathan Kulmisha, a social activist in
Marsabit. "Girls are given the responsibility of household chores and
livestock herding."
But some, like Lengima, decide to restart their
education, and mobile schools give them the chance to catch up.
Every day Lengima wakes up at 5 am, attends to
her morning duties and then heads off to the tent - equipped with chalkboards,
desks and chairs - that serves as her classroom.
She knows that in a few weeks' time, the rains
will stop and the terrain will once more be parched with the onset of the dry
season.
"I try to learn as much as possible
because after the rains we will move to faraway places in search of
pasture," she said. The school will go with them, as far as it can.
"Our teachers may not be able to survive
in some of the distant territories," said Lengima.
Launched in February 2014, the Adeso school
project is scheduled to end in 2016, when the money runs out.
The group is raising funds in the hope of
extending the project, but faces challenges such as political insecurity, poor
road and phone networks, and 'backwards' cultural beliefs that discourage
girls' education, said Adeso official Mohamed.
For now, Mohamed is optimistic that the
influence of the mobile schools will extend beyond the classroom, as the
students pass on what they have learned to their communities.
When Lengima arrives back at her village after
school, she likes to reflect on the day's lessons and share the highlights with
other women as they attend to their evening chores.
Lengima chats about the environment and climate
change. These are new issues to most of the women, but Lengima is good at
explaining how the unfamiliar concepts affect their lives.
"At the mobile school, pupils learn how to
adapt to unpredictable weather due to global warming," said activist
Kulmisha.
"The people of the community used to think the droughts and heavy rains were the work of witchcraft. After interacting with the pupils, they know better."