Mutuku, COE colleagues return to Kenya

by Mark McGowan

School days are long for children in Mwala, a small Kenyan village about 90 miles southeast of Nairobi in the district of Machakos.

They arrive as early as 6 a.m. and finally head for home as late as 10 p.m., which seemingly would indicate a devotion to active and meaningful learning and growing.

Yet “with all this work, nothing seemed to be changing,” said Moses Mutuku, an NIU assistant professor of early childhood education who grew up in Kenya . “I wondered why.”

Mutuku soon discovered the answer. The children spent as many as five hours a day fetching water, walking 10 miles round-trip to the only source. Because an ample and easily obtained water supply is not a concern for children in Kenya 's cities, where modern infrastructure creates greater economic opportunities, urban students enjoy an educational advantage over their rural counterparts.

Bridging that gap has driven Mutuku since 2000.

This summer, he and some of his fellow academics return to Mwala to continue his flourishing project. Mutuku and three NIU colleagues – Maylan Dunn, Randi Wolfe and C. Sheldon Woods – will depart June 14 with two volunteers from the Chicago Public Schools who will document the trip.

Dunn will work with pre-school teachers and mothers to stress the importance of early learning foundations. Wolfe will instruct villagers on how family connections can help children communicate and learn. Woods will work with upper-primary schools to tackle prevention of communicable diseases, such as Chlamydia and HIV-AIDS.

Dunn and Woods are returning only six months after their last visit, when they trained teachers in the latest research on early childhood and elementary education and how to apply it in the classroom.

“It's a comprehensive project. We're looking at the whole child,” Mutuku said.

“We've moved the project more toward education. We're all going to some of the urban schools to compare them with what we know from the rural schools – observing, exchanging, asking and answering questions,” he added. “We're looking for things we could do in terms of the strategies of teaching, things we can give the (Mwala) teachers. We want them to share control with the child. We want children to participate in their own learning. It would be nice if we saw that empowerment.”

Empowerment fuels all of Mutuku's activities in Mwala. He is helping the village residents to help themselves, encouraging them to change their attitudes toward life and responsibility, and it's working.

It started with the water.

Mutuku and some friends contributed money toward the construction of water dams that would allow the harvesting of rain as it fell. The villagers helped to build two dams to channel the water to their village, and now have constructed some water tanks the size of Mutuku's Gabel Hall office for storage.

They also tested a drill last summer to dig wells and bring buried water to the surface, but the machine broke when it hit an underground rock. They will try again this summer with “better spots to drill.”

Once children could devote more time to their studies, the project turned toward the parents and their attitudes.

“They despair. They see no hope because of all the things that go on. They accept that their situation is hopeless and helpless,” he said. “For most of these children, if you wake up and see your mom or dad sitting around, and you don't know if you're going to eat that day, there's nothing better than saying, ‘Hey, you don't have to live this way.' We are giving them hope. In 10 years, I want these children to be able to live above these circumstances.”

Mutuku launched the “chicken project,” helping the villagers to construct a coop with wire mesh he provided. To foster a sense of responsibility, he gave chicks to 20 families, entrusting them with the care of the animals. The families later upgraded to goats and cows.

The villagers also gathered to put a roof on a town library, the walls of which were built through the project's guidance and funding. NIU College of Education professors are donating books to stock the shelves.

Literacy is a top goal. “Knowledge has to feed back to economic independence,” Mutuku said. “If you know how to read, you can go find books on gardening. You can come back and support your families with a better standard of living.”

Residents of Mwala now are dreaming up their own ideas to improve their situation, making their own decisions and then, Mutuku said, carrying out the plans.

“I'm very proud of how much they have taken the lead,” he said. “It is kind of a relief to me to see people taking this kind of ownership. You know they are starting to accept that it is on themselves to make a difference in their lives, and that we are just partners. We are equals in trying to find the best direction.”

Mutuku's long-term goal is to hold up Mwala as a model of the possibilities when the educational gap is narrowed and convince Kenyan government officials to create a nationwide plan based on his work.

He will start to meet with some “high-ranking” educational and political officials this summer, he said, but is waiting for more changes to take shape in Mwala before rolling out the entire plan. He also will visit some other villages in search of a second site.

Also, Wolfe will take a sabbatical leave this fall to further her work in connecting families and training mothers.

“We're now taking stock,” Mutuku said. “What are the differences? What have we learned? What is the impact?”

Meanwhile, the humble Mutuku, who cried as a child because he did not have books to read, remains surprised that so many of his colleagues and friends have taken interest in the project, either through their dollars or their work.

“I didn't even think about telling people. This is something real that I was doing because it needed to be done,” he said. “I'm amazed at the way people have responded.”

6-6-05