Callie Daniels-Howell, Kalamazoo College student and 2012 Umoja Project intern

After three days of planning meetings, orientation meetings, fellowship meetings and more meetings, I am left with a contented tiredness and an overwhelming admiration for the Umoja Project and all those in both Indiana and Kenya who work tirelessly to make it the beautiful organization that it is.

All of the staff, volunteers, guardians and congregational leaders are amazing individuals who contribute so much to these students and to this community but today my heart lies with Umoja Project’s LINK Teachers. The LINK Teachers are, as named, the link between the Umoja Project and the school administration as well as the students at their schools.

There are now 18 primary schools with which Umoja partners, so today we met with the 18 primary school LINK Teachers to discuss our schedules for visiting their schools and to discuss what their role entails. These teachers work with their school’s administration to ensure that the partnership with Umoja remains, allowing the Project to work through the schools to support the orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) which it serves.

The teachers also are those who are most aware of what is going on with their students, providing Umoja with information and referrals for support as well as providing the students with psychosocial support. When Umoja provides basic needs – blankets, lamp kerosene, sanitary towels, emergency food aid, and food for the school lunch program – this all goes through the LINK teachers who then make sure it reaches the OVCs. They work with the guardians of the OVCs in their schools to facilitate income generating activities and to ensure their students have what is needed to remain in school.

The teachers follow their students to secondary school and continue to be the link between the students and the project, keeping close watch over them and making sure that they are well.

They are amazing. I sat in the meeting today, at a location which is very far for many of the teachers and after a long day working at school, and looked around at these dedicated and hard-working individuals.

The Umoja Project does not provide these teachers with any stipend; instead they dedicate their time out of kindness, compassion, and devotion to their students and community.

I have always heard about and known that these LINK teachers were so essential to the Project’s success, but sitting among them in the meeting today overwhelmed me with gratitude for their will which provides their students with so much. As I listened to them speak of their duties and at the end of the meeting watched them carry away huge loads of sanitary towels, some for a very long distance, I thought of my own teachers. I was again overwhelmed with gratitude because I know that in their own way, they are the same as these LINK Teachers. They work hard, they dedicate their lives to their students, and they care.

While the education systems in Kenya and the US may be very different, it is the teachers who help us to learn and grow and who ultimately shape and mold us into the individuals we are to become.

As I sat among them, all I could say was “thank-you” and take a moment to be in gratitude to those teachers in my life who have also shown such determination to ensure my classmates’ and my success. I look forward to continuing to learn from these wonderful individuals throughout our time here and hope so greatly that I can carry their and my own teachers’ inspiring spirit with me, both here and throughout my life.