By Guyana OJ

Resilience has been identified as a necessary skill to impart in learners to improve achievement of their learning outcomes. This is because learners face daily stressors in their personal, communal, cultural and wider socio-economic environment that if not mitigated, have the potential to derail them from their academic path.

This is what has informed the Youth First Kenya (YFK) program, a Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) approved school curriculum that integrates inner well-being, growth mindset and social-emotional development for learners. The program promotes student wellbeing and holistic development, promising to strengthen student-teacher relationships, increase student and teacher problem-solving capacities and encourage positive character among learners.

Teachers are already noting positive outcomes

In just under half a year of implementing the YFK program in Bungoma County, which is among five counties in Kenya selected for a scale up of the program targeting over 856 schools and 27,358 learners in Junior Secondary Grade 7, teachers are already observing tremendous improvement in the character of their learners.

Simon, a YFK Facilitator at Chemwa Comprehensive School in Bungoma County notes the following:

I am happy with the YFK program because it is in line with the current Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) curriculum where we are looking out for engaged, empowered and ethical learners.

The program has positively impacted many of our learners, but I will single out one of the grade 7 learners called David who has exhibited the biggest change.

David had been known for years for his inability to control his anger and this for a long time had a negative effect on his academic journey and social life. We don’t know the origin of his anger issues, but we suspect it has something to do with the fact that he lost one of his parents to suicide a few years back.

Before interacting with the YFK curriculum, David had a history of not taking punishment or correcting well. He would overreact. There are instances when he would even run out of school when punished for wrongdoing.

Today, however, David is completely transformed. He has taken to heart the resilience skills he has learnt from sessions such as identifying character strengths, listening skills, identifying life goals and planning how to reach these goals, among others. He is now interacting more positively with his peers, he wants to take responsibility, he completes his work on time and wants to be involved in everything. Presently, he is not only the prefect in his class but has also joined the volleyball and football teams. He is now a favorite among many teachers.

His relationship with both his peers and teachers has greatly improved. We have been able to observe his progression, and it clearly demonstrates the impact of the YFK program on learners.           

We have been challenged to think beyond academics

A conversation with Linet, a YFK Facilitator at St. Paul’s Kibisi Comprehensive School, Bungoma County, reveals that knowledge gained by teachers involved in the YFK program has prompted them to look beyond academics, and start getting more involved in their learners’ personal lives to help address barriers that are negatively impacting their academic life.

I learnt a great deal from the YFK Facilitator’s workshop where we were trained on the YFK program and how to facilitate sessions for our learners.

One of the primary things from the training that I took to heart was the fact that as a teacher, I had never considered my impact on a learner beyond academics. There were so many things I had normalized which I was wrong to do so.

For instance, I had normalised absenteeism by my learners. I would rationalise it by attributing it to the fact that they were vulnerable socioeconomically hence it was understandable if they missed school for reasons to do with their poor socioeconomic background. I was aware of three learners in my class who were from vulnerable backgrounds. One was from an extremely poor home, the other from a home that was characterised by domestic violence whereas the third was pregnant. However, I didn’t feel as though I had a personal responsibility to get involved in any of these issues. My focus was solely on their academic life.

However following my interaction with the YFK program, I have been challenged to look beyond my learners’ academic life. My first course of action was to follow up with the learner named Faith, who had dropped out of school because of pregnancy. Together with a colleague who had also undergone YFK training, we made a home visit to Faith’s home. We found out that she had given birth and was nursing her 2-month-old baby.    

In spite of her parents and the wider community pushing her to stay out of school and focus on parenting, we learnt that she was still willing to resume her studies. Therefore, as a school community, we have been able to give her all the support she needs to resume her studies. The school administration has waived her school fees, and we contributed and bought her a new pair of school uniform and shoes, and the learner is now back in school.

She may from time to time be absent from school particularly when there’s no one at home to care for her newborn, but she is mostly in school and progressing well with her academics. She is now a pillar of resilience and a good example to her peers. When we teach the other learners about resilience skills, we are able to proudly use Faith as an example.

In fact, other learners now don’t have ‘good’ excuses for being absent from school because if Faith can come to school in spite of having a newborn at home to care for, no learner can claim to have a bigger challenge.

I can confidently state on behalf of other teachers that YFK has had a tremendous impact on our school community.

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.