Our In Country Coordinator Survey

In order to complete meaningful and sustainable work while in Kajuki, Youthlinc staff asks our In Country Coordinator questions about the community’s needs. Below is the survey completed by David Muiru. His answers immediately follow the questions.

“Our June team will run all their projects from Makambani Primary School so it is important that we will have support and buy-in from the community surrounding the school.

Cultural Exchange Committee:

Youthlinc wants our team to connect to the wonderful culture in your country. We want the people in your communities to connect to our team, too. Cultural Committee includes opening/closing ceremonies, painting a mural, home visits, and we’d like to do more learning from the community about their cultural norms (food, dance, language, etc.).

How many people can we expect at Opening and Closing Ceremonies?
Expect about 200 people.

What does the community have planned for Opening and Closing Ceremonies?
Entertaining and giving gifts.

Is there anything the community would like the team to do at Opening Closing Ceremonies? The team to entertain them also.

Would people in the community be interested in participating in music or art lessons from our team? If music, what instrument are they interested in? Would they be willing to teach our team music or art lessons? The community would be interested please come with guitars and other music instruments.

Is there somewhere we can paint a mural in the village? Does the community have anything in mind for the mural? Yes, there is an area. No, but Andrew is aware.
We want to learn from the people in the community! What could villagers teach to small groups of 5-8 participants and are they willing to teach our team? (language, cooking, food, music, dance, meditation, traditional stories, history, etc.). The villagers will teach them stories, history, and language.

Home visits- We’d like to take small groups of our team (4-6 people) out each morning and afternoon. Is this community willing to allow our team to visit them at their homes and get to know them? Yes.

Community Health Committee:

Youthlinc teaches multiple health fairs in the community- for men, women, teens, families, etc. These groups can be large or small, depending on the needs of the community. We usually provide a basic hygiene kit to families and feminine hygiene supplies to women and teenage girls.

What health-related needs are present in the community? (diseases, nutrition, other health issues) Diseases, Nutrition,

Are there any specific topics the community members would like to learn more about, please provide a detailed list of topics? Yes. HIV/AIDS and other STIs, and how to have Nutrition, healthy Hygiene.

Youthlinc likes to teach some lessons to women only and some lessons to men only. Are both men and women in the community interested in attending a gender-specific health lesson? Yes.

Kindly provide some women specific topics that they are interested in learning about.

Women’s Topics

Hiv and Aids
Family Planning
Health Hygiene

Kindly provide some men specific topics that they are interested in learning about.

Men’s Topics

Hiv and Aids
Cancer

What is the age range of people that will attend community health lessons?
12- 50 years.

How many people do you think will attend the health lessons?
About 200.

What, if any, topics are inappropriate to teach in this area?
None are Inappropriate.

Something we will need to mindful of is to find different communities for the May and June team to teach their community health fairs to. They should not teach the same community—there is too much overlap in lessons and the community members are not interested by the time the second group get there. Andrew will create another group in June.

Education Committee:

Youthlinc supports students in practicing English with native speakers. We like to rotate our lessons among 5-6 classes of students for 2.5-3 hours in the mornings and 2.5-3 hours in the afternoon.

Would Makambani Primary School prefer an English Camp or a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) Camp? Or perhaps a hybrid of both?
A hybrid of both.

How many children will be present at English Camp? About 200.

How many students will be in each classroom per rotation? About 20.

What is the age range of students attending English Camp? 6 Years to 15 years.

How much time per day could we dedicate to English Camp? Could we do 2.5-3 hours in morning and 2.5-3 hours in afternoon? As per your program.

Are there specific English or STEM lessons that the community wants to learn? Specific words, phrases, focus, etc.? Yes, like New words.”