Education Is Power: Intern Post by Megan Wilcken

How do you tell the stories of Kenyans? Where do you start? With the plaguing poverty that constantly threatens nearly every village, every household, every person? Or the inexplicable gratitude and generosity they espouse, belying their poverty? The fierceness of their circumstances? Or the fierceness of their desires and determination?

How do you do justice to the heart of a woman who suffers from physical deformities that make even walking (let alone working) a painful and difficult ordeal, but who keeps walking, keeps working, and then sits at a kitchen table at the end of a long day and sings her gratitude for everything God has given her?

How do you even begin to tell the story of children who will skip their only meal to read a book? Or who will sleep on a desk at school for the privilege of several extra hours of studying? Or who single-mindedly pursue an education, not for themselves alone, but so they can improve the lives of everyone in their families and villages?

This is a challenge that every Kenya Keys intern learns firsthand when they visit Taru. It’s a challenge that Kenya Keys, as an organization, decided to address more directly than ever before during the 2014 trip. As the photographer on this particular trip, I was charged with creating several series of photographs that captured the stories of our Kenyan friends. This blog post is a look at just one of those stories: the way students in Taru feel about education.

I worked with another intern, Marilyn Lewis, and with Kenya Keys’ employees, Steven Kabani and Susan Nyamawi to create these photographic stories. We started the project by meeting with ten students at Taru Primary School. We asked each student to summarize what education means to them in just one or two words. Together, they created a list on the chalkboard, a list that illustrated why education matters to them.

 

If you were asked to complete the sentence, “Education is…” what would you say? We were astounded at the students’ responses: education is light, education is a shield, it is my future, the strength of life, my hope. One of the most compelling moments of the experience came when a group of seven students were videotaped stating their belief that, “education is power.” If you listen closely, you will hear the voice of one girl—Khadija—speaking with even greater conviction and strength than her peers. That voice, that conviction, captured in just three words—that is the Kenyan story.

So how do you tell the stories of Kenyans? You don’t. You simply find a way to let them tell their stories themselves. Watch them telling their story in this short video.