Achungo is frequently asked by Education Ministry and school
administrators throughout Kenya about the “secret” behind their academic
success and exemplary student discipline.
The key has nothing to do with enforcement imposed on the students but
rather lies in a deeply held mission shared by staff and students alike. It is imparted to new teachers by Director
Michael Nyangi as soon as they come on-board.
Michael meets with new teachers in a one-on-one where he
gives them the background that imparts that vision. He starts by telling them his story.
Michael grew up in this rural part of Homa Bay County,
Nyanza, where jobs are almost non-existent and those few are nearly all
farm-work. His father died when he was
7, so his family struggled, largely surviving on their garden plot. Friends and family helped him with secondary
expenses. Then as he took work in
Nairobi, an employer helped him save for college. In 2003 Michael graduated with a CPA-Kenya
and began working in a bank, his dream job.
He was living in Kibera and on his walks to work noticed the desperation
of some single mothers. His heart went
out to them so gave them a little money and noticed later that they had used it
to purchase corn to roast and sell. They
had begun a business.
At age 22, Michael quit his job and dedicated himself
full-time to helping the women of Nairobi slums start small businesses and over
the course of some years built up a 15-person office of microfinance called
Lomoro. During that same time, as he
went home on holidays, Michael noticed the desperation of small children,
apparently orphans, on the street scrounging garbage for enough food to
survive. And his heart went out to them. He had known hardship as a child and it hurt
him to see any child left abandoned.
He began to take those children into his home and he and his
mother cared for them. By 2005, with a
few dozen children, Michael formed the Achungo Community Centre CBO, rented a
small shed in Rodi-Kopany, and began to teach the children with the volunteer help
of some widows from a local church.
Thus began the Achungo Educational Centre that has now grown to 2
primaries with about 450 students.
We have graduated 3 Standard 8 classes with 100% passing the
KCPE and now in secondaries, some in national schools and some of them have top
scores for the entire county. Our
students are self-motivated in their studies and there are no classroom
discipline problems. When a teacher is
not in the class, the students quietly study independently or in groups, often
led by the student “monitor”. Even the
Baby class is well-behaved. In the six
years that I’ve brought teams from the U.S. to visit Achungo schools, there has
never been a switch used in any classroom.
Caning never happens, in fact it is entirely unnecessary. As Michael tells his story to his new teachers, he makes the point that they need to share his vision for these orphans and understand their struggles. They must become like fathers and mothers to them. “Teaching these children is a calling,” Michael tells them.
“After I tell them my story,” Michael says, ”I tell them
about our orphans, some of their stories, and I take them to visit some of
their homes so that they can understand their struggles.”
Some of our children are living with good Samaritans who saw
them on the street and took them in, like Michael did. Most are living with a relative, an aunt or
elderly grandmother, and some are with parents.
Our Standard 8 students live on campus because they are up at 5 a.m. to
begin studies before school and are studying until 9 p.m. And there are also some Standard 7 students
on-campus. But there also have always been a small number of younger children who live on-campus or with a teacher because of abuse or neglect from their guardian or parent. Our orphans lost their parents to AIDS or to the violence of 2007 or to starvation, illness or accidents, or simply abandonment. They have suffered and gone hungry. Many were out of school because their guardians needed their help or because they were gathering wood to make charcoal so that the family could survive. Michael wants his teachers to know what these orphans already know – education is their key to escaping the age-old cycle of extreme poverty. For them it changes everything. These children put their whole heart and full effort into their studies. It is their key to a bright future.
Michael’s teachers emulate his faith and humility, his
integrity and compassion. They love
their children and the encouragement and respect they hold for their students
is evident in every classroom by every student.
That is the secret to their exemplary classroom discipline and academic
excellence. Michael tells his teachers,
“We don’t want any child to fail. Not
all will be superior in a given subject but they will have strengths in other
areas. Some may struggle because of
emotional issues, but we don’t want to neglect them, let alone expel
them.” If a student is struggling academically, they
are tutored, both by teachers and by other students. That is how Achungo achieves 100% passing the
KCPE.
And the teachers are supported and encouraged by Michael and
his Headmasters. It is all-important to
Michael that he and his headmasters not become arrogant with position but
always be approachable for the teachers.
“We must be easy for the teachers to talk to and must give them the
authority to carry out their responsibilities independently, trusting them to
make their own decisions,” says Michael. That fosters an atmosphere of collaboration
and one where everyone is comfortable to bring up any issue to Michael and
their Headmaster because they know they will not be blamed or ignored but will
be joined in collaborative problem-solving – for the sake of the children.
Too often when someone achieves an administrative position
in a school, they become so self-important that they alienate their teachers
and that disaffection of staff ends up hurting the students with neglect or
even abuse. That will never happen at
Achungo.
Our teachers are like a family. They collaborate in many ways and they
support each other in a creative manner, even pooling funds at times to help a
colleague. A committee of the
experienced teachers guides the assessment process for new teacher
candidates. They feel the empowerment of
being involved in decisions about hiring and about school management in
general. The love and respect and
encouragement that they experience is something they also pass on to their
students. That is the secret of Achungo.
