Ms. Erenia Kalamba a grade 3 teacher at Priscillah Primary School in Taita Taveta County is one of the teachers from the County who have received training to facilitate the Youth First Kenya personal resilience and health curriculum to learners in her school. Having worked as a teacher for about five years, she is appreciative of the value resilience skills will have on her learners owing to the myriad of challenges they face, that are likely to negatively impact their learning outcomes. Erenia briefly shares her perspective so far about the YFK program that was developed by WorldBeing and adapted for Kenya and is being implemented by Basic Needs Basic Rights Kenya with support from the Echidna Giving Fund and Fondation d’Harcourt.     

Our learners carry a heavy burden

In our locality, learners face several challenges that directly affect their schooling. The most predominant that I have observed, is being raised by single parents who in most cases have low incomes.

There are numerous instances where these kids show up to school notably low on morale and seemingly distracted. When we enquire, we learn that they came to school without having breakfast because their parents couldn’t afford it.

I used to be unfair to my learners

Previously, as a teacher, I was very inconsiderate when handling issues affecting learners. My focus was on punishing them for perceived mistakes. I never took the time to listen. For instance, if they showed up to school late, my immediate action was to subject them to punishment.

Today however, courtesy of training I received as part of the YFK program, my approach has changed. I am cognisant that these learners may be facing a lot of challenges that manifest in the form of issues we tended to attribute to indiscipline. Therefore, I make it a point to listen to them to understand what they are going through.

For instance, if a learner is late, I will first seek to find out why they are late, then determine an appropriate course of action after we have had a proper conversation. This is how I came to learn of the difficult family situations of many of my learners.

In the context of YFK, I consider this as the character strength of wisdom. It is evident that this curriculum is positively impacting me as a teacher just in the same way it is envisioned to impact my learners.

I am optimistic in positive outcomes for my learners

In my opinion, the YFK program is timely because of its focus on building resilience of these learners to be able to thrive in spite of such challenges that they currently face. I believe with these skills, they will be able to diligently pursue their education, as they stay hopeful of a brighter future devoid of their current challenges.

Having just taken my learners through the three initial YFK sessions, I am already seeing positive changes in them. They have improved their listening and ability to communicate which has in turn made them more disciplined. They are also excited about discovering their own character strengths and being able to identify these strengths in each other.

We are just scratching the surface with this program and I as well as my learners are excited about this journey towards building resilience.