By Sharon Nashipae – Communications and Community Coordinator

Walking into Brightshine School in Kayole, Nairobi, one can feel an instant change in ambiance. Although the street outside the school is densely populated, muddy, unsanitary and quite telling of the environment within which the children live, school is a different story. Here, there is order, colour and a lively feel all around. The classrooms, albeit small and crowded are full of brightly coloured lively charts. In the hallways, school bags are neatly arranged. School feeding programme baskets are stacked outside the classrooms awaiting meal-time. Where there is no room for storage, there are makeshift shelves packed with neatly organized books for the learners.

Brightshine is a community school that has partnered with Dignitas through the Stawisha program. It caters to learners between Grade 1 & 8 from the surrounding areas. A walk through the classrooms is testament of the school’s dedication to learning, good leadership and the teachers’ passion.

Head teacher, Winnie Owino says that this was not always the case. She shares that going through Dignitas’ Stawisha program significantly impacted the school. “There was a lot we didn’t know. My teachers’ approach to learners, how they conducted their lessons, managing classrooms and how they related to parents were not up to standard. She says that the school faced and continued to face many challenges. The Stawisha program helped to align the school in many ways. For starters, Ms. Owino noticed an immediate change in the way the teachers who attended Stawisha interacted with their learners. They began to focus more on the learner where previously their main focus was to deliver the lessons. This resulted in improved understanding and performance. This in turn contributed greatly to improved relations with parents who noticed the changes.

Ms. Owino confesses that her teacher-to-teacher relations had not been collaborative, but she was quick to add that the professional learning communities (PLC’s) changed this. She and her Stawisha teachers committed to sharing what they had learnt from the program and gradually the positive improvements are being felt across the school. “Our post-Dignitas experience has been one of positive collaboration,” she notes, “I would appreciate an opportunity for my teachers to be part of another Dignitas program so that they can learn more.”

Leaving the school means meandering through ambiguous paths in the backdrop the hopeful sounds of children reading in low hums and singing along in cheerful rhymes. Through Brightshine’s partnership with Dignitas, more children are able to learn, giving them a chance to face the world.