An orderly school with high expectations
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I am so excited for the children of Rafiki because of the education that they are receiving. From 3 year old children up, they are learning a top quality education. The Rafiki curriculum was taken from the Ugandan educational requirements. They added a Biblical world view to every subject and it is quite impressive. The key to the students' well behaved attitudes is consistency in everything that they do from discipline, to dress codes, to curriculum to daily schedules. There is a Bible study that everyone on campus participates in. Even the mamas are in a weekly Bible Study that has the same subject as the children have in school. Even the parade in the morning (as they call it) that leads the students to the flag pole before school mentions the daily Bible verse and what the students should be learning.
I thought about these students alot today as I was going through the curriculum training. I thought about how Carolyne (the director) compared them to Joseph in the Bible in the previous blog. And I believe it is true. These kids will be okay when they leave this place because of their consistent character development.
Today, after dinner, I walked with some of the girls around the village. I did not take my camera because I did not want to look like that was the reason for my village visit. The children knew many families and stopped to visit and talk. One of the community outreach programs that Rafiki has (as required by Ugandan law) is the village children. They allow the children to attend their school and so the Rafiki kids were excited to walk around and visit their friends. Another outreach program that they have is the Widows Program. This particular program reaches out to the widows in the village and helps to promote their crafts by selling them in the U.S. The children at Rafiki benefit from this program as well because they go out in the village and learn all the local trades and crafts.
They are also learning to care for their neighbors. The director stopped by to visit a little girl that is not being taken care of. She has assigned 3 girls at rafiki to keep watch on her. They have helped to clean wounds and sores on her little body and they care for her deeply. As soon as the little girl in the village is healed, she will be allowed to enter the school program. She is on crutches and has sores all over her body. We are taking her to the doctor tomorrow and the 3 Rafiki girls asked to go with her. When we left her house, we stopped by JaJa's little mud hut and the girls ran up to greet her. The JaJa was so excited they visited and they invited her to tea when school is out on break.
The quality education that these children are receiving does not stop with the books. I am learning more from the children than I am learning in the training. The Rafiki children are learning to love their neighbors, to be a part of their village in many ways and they are learning to adapt as Joseph did in different environments.
| “I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?” | |
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"Love your neighbor as yourself."
Mark 12: 31
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