IN LOVING MEMORY

My earliest memories of you our dear father Hermann Gmeiner, is of days spent painstakingly practicing welcome songs for your visits. These days were filled with love and joy. Our efforts were well acknowledged because your stay with us meant days brightened with color for we got so many balloons and sweets. You were the only grown up we could cart around in the wheelbarrow and get away with it. Not once did you complain that the ride was bumpy, and I know it was. You just rode with us and as usual gave us your big smile.

To me, it was like you just came to see me, and I am sure we all felt the same way. Only you had that special way of making each one of us feel your visit was personal. We always knew the exact time your flight landed so our eyes were always on the clock. Those who couldn’t tell time asked their older brothers and sisters. All the air traffic at the appointed time was bringing you to us, it didn’t matter that the army airstrip was close to the village. Maybe those were the army planes. Who knows?

Today we join in prayer in your memory. We pray that when you look at us you smile because your work is a success and your dream has come to pass. We have a family that loves us, and we have many friends. Baba, you did a great job and God bless you forever.

Today's thought

On the anniversary of our founder's passing, I would wish to share this Irish poem with you all, and pray that we remember all the good intentions and dreams that Hermann Gmeiner had when he started the SOS Children's Villages.

WHEN I MUST LEAVE YOU

When I must leave you

for a little while

Please do not grieve

and shed wild tears

And hug your sorrow to you

through the years

But start out bravely

with a gallant smile;

And for my sake and

in my name live on

and do all things the same,

Feed not your loneliness

on empty days,

But fill each waking hour

in useful ways,

Reach out your hand

in comfort and in cheer

And I in turn will comfort you

and hold you near;

And never,

never be afraid to die.

WHO AM I?

I have a theory on why most of the SOS children do not perform well in school. My theory is that the education structure does not encourage individualism. Take this, you live all your life in the village, you go to the village kindergarten, the SOS Primary school, The SOS high school and then maybe the SOS College, or even the SOS technical school. Note that most of the formative years are spent in SOS institutions. I cannot say this about the present moment but when I attended SOS education institutions, I was always an SOS child, even if I did something as an individual; it was termed “SOS children’s behavior”.

I am not against SOS education institutions per se; I only feel that their effectiveness is not felt because there is little separation of the children’s lives from their school life. Imagine going to a school where all the teachers know all the details about your family. They have preconceived ideas about your character, your ability, your personality, even the expected performance in school. Tell me how objective can someone be if they already have an impression of who you are. The image the village father and mother present of the child is exactly what they present to the teachers and more often than naught, the children do not disappoint. They turn out exactly as presented.

Ever heard of the story of the student who came to class late, found a problem on the board, copied it down and went home and tried to solve it? He brought his answer to class and the teacher did not know what to say, because before the student came to class he had already told the rest of the class that it was not solvable. The student did not hear that and that is why he went on to solve it. Moral; let us have better expectations of the SOS children and see if that changes anything. Separate home life and school life and see what happens. It worked for the church and state. Why can’t it work here?

It took me a long time to learn who I am as an individual, since I always was an SOS child in everyone’s eyes. I feel the “individualization of the child” is a concept that should be encouraged in the SOS institutions. I think that the term SOS child is situational. We are SOS children by virtue of being under the care of SOS. I wonder if anyone recalls the time when we dreaded going to the SOS Primary school (Poly), this was an SOS institution and yet we were the most terrorized group of students there. It was not enough that the school was strict to the point of being ridiculous (we were too busy trying to avoid the canes to learn, it is the only school I was ever forced to copy assignments). I digress; all I would like to point out is that behind all those colored t-shirts written SOS, behind all those noisy kids at play, behind all those naughty kids swimming in the tanks or climbing trees are individuals and that is what we should see first.

I am against this idea of herding SOS children and having the same expectation from them in terms of how they think, how they behave, what they want out of their lives, the careers they want to pursue etc. I agree that there are common habits that we form as members of the SOS community, but let us not limit the characters of the individuals to fit onto the box. When we were young, there were several fruit-stealing incidences, most of which were followed by what I would call kangaroo courts by virtue of their lengths, presided by the village father to fish out the culprits. This of course required beating the kids known not to have perseverance for the cane. Would it be right therefore to say all the kids stole fruits? No. Then why did one teacher once say “If any one’s food is stolen, an SOS child is likely to be the culprit”? I am afraid at the time this was taken by its face value and I even remember laughing it off. Now that I am older and wiser, I feel that comments like these should be taken seriously and prevented at all cost because little by little, we start believing what they imply and even act them out to some extent since we know that they are expected behavior.


Today’s challenge

Acknowledge a child as an individual today by asking these simple questions.

What did you learn in school today?
What do you like doing most?
Who is the most important person in your life?
What do you want to be when you grow up?

Feel free to add to the list.

My Take

I apologize for the long absence, I was on vacation and now that I am back at my desk, I hope to keep the discussions flowing.

First I would like to reply to some of the comments some of you sent. My argument on education seems to be generating a lot of interest so I will revisit it again.

We come to SOS and try and make the best we can out of the opportunity. As we are all aware, we do not stand to inherit any land, and even one of our youth leaders keeps reminding us, “SOS hakuna shamba”(SOS has no land), what he was trying to say was, we stand no chance of inherit any part of land that SOS stands on. What we get out of SOS we carry in out hearts and minds. We get the familial love and we also gain a chance for a better life. Education falls within the range of things we can carry in our minds. A large majority of our community members will try and look for employment at one time or another, and this is where the education level matters. The more educated you are, the better the chance of a better job and with the current unemployment level, this may not even be a guarantee for a job. The education argument was taken further in other posts and we saw how we can define education differently. In today’s world, we can also see education in the street-wise sense, one’s survival capability in the real world.

I appreciate SOS as an institution that is dedicated to quality service to its beneficiaries. Its approach at attempting to get constructive feedback from former SOS children is not only genuine, but also displays concern on their part. Please see the tracking footprints report and tell me what you think. There is a lot of positive stuff being done out there. SOS is accepting that not all the products have been positive, but they are dedicated to making improvement on situations within their power i.e. the children who are still in the projects.

I would like to believe that the SOS organization is growing and positively at that. Like any other community, adversity challenges us to improve ourselves and we do not allow any problems to hold us back. Of course we take long to change, remember this is a social setting so changes are not effected rapidly in all cases which to some may be too slow. But isn’t life like that? You can’t please every body.


Thought of the day
Think of a new way to improve the work of SOS today. Remember, we are a community and each one of us plays a role in the development of our community. Take responsibility today.

ON CRITISISM

When I started this blog, I mentioned that we will be dealing with issues that affect our community. One of the comments posted had a disturbing ring to it, part of it reads as follows;

“…the other day I was working on a certain paper and the truth is I felt ashamed to be an SOS person, why some dude is trying to prove that institutional care- the SOS model is an enslaver to devt and for real... the interviews done in Ethiopia, Namibia and Rwanda proved their claim.... but how come????? some get this far? …” - anonymous

My first reaction was, hey, we have enough people out there who can write their own papers to disprove that. On second thought, I feel that we should look deeper into the claims and by doing so, check if this was a truly constructive criticism, or just malicious ideas being put out by someone who has beef (problems) with the institution as a whole. I cannot comment further on the topic for now since I am yet to see the purported paper, and because I also believe in giving everyone a benefit of their doubt.

Remember the desiderata; "and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story". All I can ask is, could the anonymous person who made the comment send in maybe a link, a copy of the report, or any reference to the media used so that we can continue on this topic without necessarily brushing the person off if they have a valid point to make. If we cannot get this report I promise we will revisit the topic with the assumption of what he was trying to talk about.

Today’s challenge:
Read the desiderata this week and reflect on how you can apply it in life.

TOPIC 'DU JOUR'

Simply translated, topic du jour refers to today’s topic. Before anyone accuses me of butchering French, I know that it should actually be ‘Ordre du jour’. I digress, the hot topic of the day is, Education. I touched on it yesterday, and yes, I will beat it till heaven comes. The reason being, Brian Tracy in his book ‘Focal Point’ says, “Whatever you concentrate on grows”. I figure if we pay enough attention to education in our community, then we will see the changes or growth that we so desire.

By education I not only refer to the intellectual type, I also refer to the type where one develops enough understanding of his environment, community, in general the mechanics of his surrounding. For example, how many of our youth ever know how, or even where bills are paid prior to leaving the family house? It is this type of education I am talking about, the knowledge of what goes on behind that gate. The realities of life, that in real life people do not always money ready for their school fees. That sometimes there isn’t enough money to buy sugar, or even milk for tea. That money is income, and not a gift. And to always keep that in mind, when spending it. I am not advocating for misappropriation of funds, I am just saying that sometimes we come out facing life unprepared, our realities are not an actual representation of real life.

Let me touch on the other kind of education. Yes, the intellectual type. I do not believe that intellectual ability always has to be a result of birth. The difference in one kid’s performance from another is their brains synthesis of information. Different brains process information differently. Some kids are lucky that the education system is designed such that their brains are able to process the information faster. I am basing this on experience, how else do you explain those kids who were last in class and tuition classes changed all that? Or those kids who were always last in class and yet managed to get into the university, or even those who were removed from school and somehow became the best in their fields? I believe there are several buttons to be pushed to increase productivity in schools. If each of us pushed the ones they believe can work, imagine the kind of successes we can see in our community.

Education is about focus, the minds ability to narrow down on a subject, issue, experience etc. to develop awareness of it. Some people have mastered how to do this, others have to learn, work harder on their focusing skills. But God is fair and nature balances itself, so with enough practice on focus, a kid who was always last in class worms his/her way up to the top. Note my use of language here, it is not necessarily a fast process, but persistence pays.

I believe with hard work and encouragement a kid can greatly improve on his education. This is where we step in as big brothers and sisters. We need to give encouragement and assistance to each other. We have to teach the kids in our community how to focus, give them reasons to focus, be role models they can emulate, teach them how to dream big and broaden their horizons. Remember, “and as you dream, so shall you become” (James Allen, “As a Man Thinketh”).

Today’s challenge:

• Given my experiences in life, what contribution can I make to the education of a child?
• How much can these experiences be used to educate our brothers and sisters about the realities of life? About what is on the other side of the gate (“Inje ya gate”)?
  
  
  
  

Change, Education and our Responsibilities

Change

If there is one constant in an SOS kid’s life, it is change. For us change takes place everyday. Same methodology, new administration; come retirement, new mother; grow older, youth home, transitional home etc.

The best way to deal with change is to let it flow. Imagine you are a rock on the riverbed and the change is the current. Let it smooth your rough, resisting edges. It may take a while, a ride down the river of life, but the results, a smooth edge will never disappoint.

There is another way of dealing with change, resisting. Resistance in its truest form begets revolutions which may or may not be beneficial. Revolutions should be used as salt, sparingly. They are only effective if kept at a minimum, say one in every 100 years?? Too many revolutions blur the focus; the attention is diverted to winning the war. We start thinking more about winning the war that we forget about what we were fighting about in the first place.

Responsibility

One thing we can learn as a community that will be beneficial to us is responsibility. Stephen Covey in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People calls it “the ability to choose your response.” We need to be able to stand up, look ourselves in the mirror and say, I am responsible for who I am today. I am who I am today because yesterday I made certain choices in my life that have brought me to the place I am today.

As a community, we have to learn that our present life is just but a result of yesterdays input we made into our lives. If it is messed up today, then we made messed up choices yesterday. No amount of blaming can change results. It is a done deal. GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT.

My point? Kids are failing in school, academic results are bad. We have all failed as a community and finger pointing will take us nowhere. I have a few reasons I can think of right out of my head at the moment.

• Little or no preparation on the student’s part.
• Lack of quality time dedicated to studies
• Class attendance (Truancy is not only physical, but mental)
• Lack of focus

I will stop here because this is one reason if worked on, can eliminate all the others.

Focus

We all need focus if we are to solve the problem and stop the blaming games. What are we as big brothers and sisters doing? Are we part of the problem, or part of the solution? What was our input last year to the candidate’s lives? Given what we know now, what can we do this year to change next year’s results?

Personally, I feel that it is too late to change last year’s results, but it is still possible to change next years. Let us all look for ways in which we can contribute positively to out community.

Today’s challenge:

What am I doing as an elder sister or brother to improve the academic life of my sister/brother?