Great suggestions from a relative

My family is quite international. I received a mail from my moms cousin, who lives in Paris and has been promoting my project there. She's been to visit and truly enjoyed her time in Excellent care center and school. She is a very smart lady and made a connection with an organisation in France. I got the email in french and had to struggle a bit to understand what they said, but it was a company who wanted projects in Africa. I'm unclear of what they could help us with, but I'm going to skype with my relative tomorrow to understand how they could help us. Hopefully I will learn more from that conversation. I hope this organisation can help us in some way!

Hard work...

Working really hard on a thing that I will reveal soon. One of the things that will help me in this is to post a video of Dan, who is a new friend of the school to the web site. Here is the result:

Go for building

Some of the Swedes in Kenya that is cooperating with me on the Excellent project decided to add their money to the building project. This means we can use the time when the students are not in school rebuilding one part of the school. It is going to give us 6 new classrooms, with new floors, walls and ceiling. This is really good news and mean that we can mak a substantial impact on the school and that the next year is going to be a lot better for the kids!

Refugee deported to Afghanistan tomorrow!

Last week I was very active on facebook, supporting the IB students in Sweden in their struggles to help a fellow IB classmate to stay in Sweden. Immad is from Afghanistan and he came to Sweden three years ago. He was justa a kid and all alone, because the Talibans killed his whole family. He started the IB program and got many friends and a good life in Sweden. Today the migration department decided to deport Immad and tomorrow he is flying back to Afghanistan. To stop this horrible act to happen, the girls protested by starting a facebook, made it possible to sign your name on a petition and demonstrated outside their local town hall. They even got a few politicians to join them, but to no avail! I helped by spreading the facebook posts to everyone I know and all are very upset about the decision to send Immad back to an most unclear future. How can a country who has a history of allowing people in need to come, deport an 18-year old IB student who is all alone in the world and only has a dangerous and uncertain life in his war torn homecountry? I'm ashamed of being Swedish right now!

The true size of Africa

This image from the internet is quite interesting. It is hard to grasp what a huge continent we live in! It's even more interesting that sometimes when people ask me where I live I just answer: Africa. Take a look at the right where Europe is marked within Africa and use a magnifying glass to find Sweden, where I grew up. Talk about contrast! I know that there has been some controversy on how the maps are being portrayed, but this image really makes it clear! One other prejudice people have about Africa is that we all lives in huts. I could not believe my ears when I met American students in England a few years ago and they where concerned that I was very poor. It's really an ignorant view of people in other parts of the world. I know that one can argue that USA is a very big country, and they have a lot to consider within their own borders but I still think this is extremely sad. When my parents lived in America, my mom told me that she often got blank stares when she said she came from Sweden. Finally she realised that no one knew what or where Sweden was so she said Scandinavia and that cleared things up a little bit. I find it really unthinkable that some are so ignorant about other countries. Luckily, my friends in ISK are not! The know things about the world that few other teenagers do, and most of them have lived in many countries on different continents.

Folders, flyers and film for Oakland school

Today I produced a folder a flyer and two films for Oakland school in Rongai. Mercy, who is the principal of the school were working together with me, she wrote the text and I designed the folder and flyer. I had earlier filmed her out in the school, so I cut together a film I think presented their visions for the school well. They say that they want an "International type" school, with lots of academics, but also a place for the children to explore other talents, like theatre, arts, music and sports. It is interesting that they want to bring this to a small village outside of Nairobi and I think they are going to get a lot of interested parents. It all made me reflect on that things that are so normal and readily available for us international students, are not something regular schools in Kenya can provide for their students. I also compared it to the school in Mathare, where only basic academic is being taught. This school is more for middle class Kenyans in the village, but they are also taking on some orphans and trying to find sponsors for them, so they are showing a big social responsibility. Both Mercy, Max and Dan are well educated and smart people and feel they need to give back to their community. It's encouraging that they feel this way and this will really make a difference in children's lives. I also love that Mercy is incredibly smart and have these high ambitions and I'm sure the school will be a great success. It is going to be a lot of fun to follow the progress of the school!

Party in Excellent school

I found myself the main person in the year end party in Excellent (with my mom). The students were singing and acting and we had a great celebration with parents, the board and of course, the kids. They gave us gifts and celebrated us in a fantastic way. I feel moved over all the wonderful and positive attention I received!