After spending 10 days helping with the building of a school in Kenya, Krista Conway’s belief that one person can make a difference has definitely been confirmed.
“Just by making an effort, because it all starts in an effort and it all snowballs from there,” she said.
The 35-year-old local teacher travelled to the small community of Olorien on July 17 to help build a school. She spent 10 days on the project, a joint initiative of Free the Children and Me to We.
“The trip is like a student leadership initiative,” she said. “Meant for students and teachers to go over and learn about conditions in other places and what’s relevant to the students in other areas.”
Conway was accompanied by two other young women from this area, former student Melissa Crewe and her friend Courtney O’Shea. They joined with a group of nine other volunteers from Marystown to participate in the build.
Rather than build one big school the campus-style school is being built one classroom at a time. During their 10 days in Olorien, Conway’s group broke the foundation for the third building, the Grade 5 and 6 classroom.
It’s an initiative that’s run as a community support program that is directed by what the community needs and meant to be sustainable.
And Conway said the community fully supported it.
“The kids would show up at the build site on a Saturday just to watch what we were doing and check in and they were so excited because they knew that the end product was coming,” she said.
Now back at home she’s planning to share the experience with her students to make them aware of what other students go through.
“It was a huge motivator for me as a teacher to see students who were so dedicated,” she said.
Despite the conditions they had to endure and challenges faced, she said the students were eager to learn. She’d also like to plan a return trip with a larger group of students for them to experience what she has.
“I don’t know how much of a difference I made on the ground in the grand scheme of things, but I got the ball rolling and a lot of little differences will come together and make one big difference.”
After spending 10 days helping with the building of a school in Kenya, Krista Conway’s belief that one person can make a difference has definitely been confirmed.
“Just by making an effort, because it all starts in an effort and it all snowballs from there,” she said.
The 35-year-old local teacher travelled to the small community of Olorien on July 17 to help build a school. She spent 10 days on the project, a joint initiative of Free the Children and Me to We.
“The trip is like a student leadership initiative,” she said. “Meant for students and teachers to go over and learn about conditions in other places and what’s relevant to the students in other areas.”
Conway was accompanied by two other young women from this area, former student Melissa Crewe and her friend Courtney O’Shea. They joined with a group of nine other volunteers from Marystown to participate in the build.
Rather than build one big school the campus-style school is being built one classroom at a time. During their 10 days in Olorien, Conway’s group broke the foundation for the third building, the Grade 5 and 6 classroom.
It’s an initiative that’s run as a community support program that is directed by what the community needs and meant to be sustainable.
And Conway said the community fully supported it.
“The kids would show up at the build site on a Saturday just to watch what we were doing and check in and they were so excited because they knew that the end product was coming,” she said.
Now back at home she’s planning to share the experience with her students to make them aware of what other students go through.
“It was a huge motivator for me as a teacher to see students who were so dedicated,” she said.
Despite the conditions they had to endure and challenges faced, she said the students were eager to learn. She’d also like to plan a return trip with a larger group of students for them to experience what she has.
“I don’t know how much of a difference I made on the ground in the grand scheme of things, but I got the ball rolling and a lot of little differences will come together and make one big difference.”
