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September and October are full and busy months at Dignitas! In Kenya, September marks the beginning of the third and last term of the academic year. Schools are busy wrapping up the year and preparing students for their final exams. As such, we put coaching on hold for the term and turn our focus to a range of other activities. We’d love to share what’s been happening recently!

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The WLA and Dignitas team pose with students and teachers at Umoja Primary School

Women Leaders in Action Visit

Our long term supporters Women Leaders in Action joined us in mid September to visit our partner schools and distribute learning resources through our Wezesha program. We visited Kabiro, Umoja, Zeal Covenant and Child of God schools, where we received a warm welcome from the entire school community. The students were delighted to receive new textbooks and sporting equipment!

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Dignitas staffer Francis (r) and Bernard (l) explain the assessment process to students at Sifa Primary School

Student Assessments

As part of our ongoing learning and evaluation, we undertake assessments to measure student achievement and track their progress over time. Our field team spent a week in late September facilitating both oral and written exams with students in Class 1, Class 3 and Class 6. The Learning and Evaluation team are now in the process of recording and analyzing results.

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Our graduating Dignitas Fellows!

Leadership Institute Graduation

Our April 2014 Leadership Training Institute Cohort graduated on 2 October. These Dignitas Fellows have each received three terms of instructional coaching and have participated in our Professional Development workshop series. We presented the Fellows with a graduation certificate, and celebrated with speeches from a few of the teachers and cake. Dignitas Trustee members Steve Kariithi, Kimathi Kamencu, and Dr Perry Devani joined the joyous event and we were honored to have them present.

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Our team and Compass Director Whitney Fry during a group activity

Dignitas Staff Retreat

On 5 October, we enjoyed a staff retreat day facilitated by Compass Consulting. As we look to finish 2015 strong and start 2016 with momentum, we revisited our core values and spent time developing an operational vision to lead us into the future. It was a meaningful day of discussion, brainstorming, and connection.

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Students at Excellence Primary School pose for a photo in their new uniforms

Uniform Distributions

In the last two months, we’ve also been busy distribution uniforms through our partnership with Tailored for Education. So far, 1,191 students from Kabiro, Excellence, Nairobi Language and Child of God Primary School have received new uniforms. Tailors are finishing production of another 211 for students at Kanyorosha Primary. By the end of October, we will have distributed over 1,400 new uniforms!

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Dignitas Coach Shete Wangira (second from right) and teachers from Kabiro Primary School pose with new textbooks

Wezesha Progress

Wezesha means ‘enable’ in Swahili and it is our infrastructure small grants program. In August we invited partner schools to apply for a grant. Our team then spent a week conducting due diligence visits at partner schools to ensure the requested projects met our criteria for funding. We are now in the process of completing projects and have been busy identifying vendors, collecting quotes, and distributing new resources to our schools.

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Be sure to pop back to our website or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date with all we are doing to transform schools in Kenya!

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