[Editor's Note: Jenna Moser is a Penn State Agricultural and Extension Education Major and a 2015 Teacher Candidate who recently spent the summer in Nyeri, Kenya with the Children Youth Empowerment Centre. This is her story]
The ability to change
one’s life is not something to be taken lightly. It is something that we all have and each and
every one of us should conduct ourselves with dignity and compassion.
 |
Jenna on her journey to Mount Kenya
(directly behind her). |
I am entering my junior
year of college majoring in Agriculture Education with a minor in International
Agriculture. My goal is to complete my
degree in 2015 and then become involved with a global oriented company and help
to teach sustainable agriculture practices to rural farmers (the people who I
believe to have the ultimate power in ridding our world’s hunger crisis). After many years abroad, I hope to return to
the United States and serve as a high school agriculture educator. I want to instill the notion in my students
that there is a need for them in this world, and they can make a difference -
especially in the agriculture sector. As
a result of my ambitions it made perfect sense for me to enroll in the class
that enabled me to study abroad in Kenya.
 |
Showing
a rabbit how to use
the newly replicated rabbit waterer |
On May 9th I
boarded a plane in Philadelphia and flew well over fifteen hours to arrive in
Kenya to participate in a three week Community Environment Development class
offered by Penn State University. My foresight
told me that three weeks would not be enough time, so I was granted permission
to stay three months until August 6th. During the past few months, I stayed at the
Children Youth Empowerment Centre (CYEC) in Nyeri. Essentially, it is a place for children whose
parents are either not in the picture or have insufficient funds to provide for
basic needs. These children are brought
to the centre with the little if any belongings they have and for the most part
have their needs met. For instance they have
food, they all have a toothbrush, they have at least one school uniform, they
have space to play with their toy balls cleverly made of grocery bags rolled
into one another, they have a strip of foam for their mattress where they can
peacefully lay down their heads every night.
These children have literally the most basic things they need, and they
are the happiest people I have ever met.
 |
Having fun at a field day at the centre.
The group that I led named themselves “Team
Power” |
While I enjoy playing
games with the youth and telling them what my sweet mother tells me every night
“I love you. Have sweet happy
dreams. Have a good day at school
tomorrow. I will see you kesho (tomorrow
in Swahili).” I acknowledge that I came
to the CYEC to help work with the agriculture component of the centre. The centre is called “Empowerment Centre”
because like a career and technical school in the states, it has several
technical components that the youth are encouraged to engage in. These components are working in a metal shop,
wood shop, tailoring room, doing arts such as painting and making jewelry,
making charcoal briquettes, and doing agriculture work with the livestock
(goats, one cow and one calf, rabbits, and chickens) and working in the shamba
(garden) where they grow sukuma wiki (kale), maize, carrots, tomatoes, onions,
and much much more.
 |
| Learning how to use a scythe to cut grass for
hay; One of the youth
enterprises offered at the CYEC and several youth have traveled to many places
to make hay and teach others how to. |
As soon as I was
exposed to the programs at the centre, I tried to think of how I could be the
most beneficial to the agriculture program.
While I did want to be engaged with the “hands on” work of rolling up my
sleeves and tilling the soil with a hoe and carrying buckets of water to the
animals, I had to constantly remind myself of what is the most sustainable thing
for the centre. I had the realization
several times that me doing the work now,
could easily translate into no one doing the work when I leave. So my approach became to work with people one
on one and over the course of several days or several weeks teach them
different practices, watch them do the work, and then offer my advice. With this tactic, I was able to successfully
implement composting (where there are collection buckets in several parts of
the centre), have youth work with the adult in the metal shop to replicate
rabbit waterers to ensure the availability of water at all times to the
rabbits, I explained the importance of castrating the Holstein calf (especially
since the livestock pens are not always shut and there are small children
always running around) and performed the operation explaining each part along
the way, occasionally I would worked with a jembe (machete) to cut grass for
fodder for the livestock, and the most important thing that I did was Teach
Ag.
 |
| Cleaning out the space for composting with youth from
the CYEC |
Working with the head person in the agriculture department we discussed that it would be really beneficial if there was an “Ag Day” at the centre. Simply because the youth see that there are animals and crops, but they do not know how to properly treat them and there is a misconception in developing countries that agriculture is only farming and that it is a “poor man’s job.” That conception is only true for the uneducated and my goal is to change it. I facilitated the first workshop with the older youth where I began asking them to all write down their definition of agriculture. For the most part their responses seemed to be all carbon copied as they dictated the definition ingrained in them during school of “Agriculture is the growing of crops and rearing of livestock.” While this is certainly a component of agriculture, it does not sum up the vastness of this industry.
After that we played games and did puzzles that visually showed: 1) The definition of agriculture, 2) The careers and opportunities offered through the industry, 3) Why they should care about agriculture (I related this to the hunger crisis and shared how critical it is for them to be aware), and 4) Agriculture at the CYEC.
 |
| Composting buckets and signs were ready to be
implemented |
At the conclusion of the workshop, I asked everyone to answer the following questions: 1) Did your view change on agriculture? And 2) Are you interested in agriculture? Why or Why Not? Nearly every student said that they were interested in agriculture and one 14 year old girl said “I’m interested in agriculture. Yes because agriculture help the farmer to raise living standards by providing enough food for me family and nation.” Another response from an 11 year old boy was “I am happy because your advice have made me to love agriculture. I love your lesson.” Reading through the responses of the over forty youth was rewarding in the fact that they were able to start the process of comprehending why agriculture is so essential. Following the lesson, I was able to choose a few older youth and worked with them over the course of a week to guide them in creating and presenting their own lesson to the younger youth. They came up with their own materials and explanations about why agriculture is important and their lesson was a success. There is something very gratifying about teaching agriculture and there is something even more fulfilling about teaching others to teach ag.
The
ripple effect is monumental.
 |
Jenna after reaching the top of Mount Kenya (4985 meters above sea level)
after several days of
hiking. |
My short three months
in Kenya has flown by and I am leaving with painfully realistic questions of
“Did I do enough?” “Who will tell the
precious children sweet dreams?” “Will I
ever see the youth again who have called me their “dada” (sister)?” “Why is there even a need for a children’s
home – shouldn’t parents or family want
and be prepared to take care of their children?”
It is my hopes that these children never lose their sense of compassion and will one day realize that they changed my life.
To learn more about starting on the path to having a career that makes a positive impact on the lives of students across the globe by becoming an agricultural educator, please contact the agricultural teacher education program at teachag@psu.edu. Follow us on Twitter at TeachAgPSU, on Facebook, or on our blog!
Jenna Moser
Guest Student Blogger
2015 Teacher Candidate
Twitter: @JennaLeeMoser
