Celebrating Community

By Bethany Dixon and Jackie Odhiambo

This month, we celebrated the hope that comes from educational achievements and dreams, cross-cultural sharing, and the beginning of new business ventures.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT THROUGH STORYTELLING WORKSHOPS

Education has been at the heart of Konyango’s mission since its founding in 2012, and it remains a core part of the widows’ mission both for their own groups and for their children. The skills, connections, and encouragement from positive educational experiences can plant the seeds of hope that change lives. This month, we held workshops that celebrated achievements and skills and provided spaces for sharing about challenges and future educational dreams. We also continued to plan for future learning through curriculum development for widows.

MBOTO SUNRISE SCHOOL WORKSHOP

Many of the widows’ children currently attend the Mboto Sunrise School, a primary school that was founded by Konyango in 2012 and has grown to have over 300 students, now run as a government school. This month we held a learning celebration workshop with 50 sixth and seventh graders, many of whom remember the first year of the school’s existence when they were in kindergarten and first grade themselves. All the students gave up hours of their Saturday to attend the workshop. They engaged enthusiastically with our games and storytelling activities. Pastor Nicodemus of the Konyango’s team gave an inspiring invocation for students not to give up in the face of challenges and fears, but instead to believe that with God and with the support of their community and school, they can overcome immense obstacles and succeed. Many students seemed to take this to heart in the stories they wrote and read aloud, sharing dreams for themselves and their families and describing hopes of becoming teachers, engineers, pilots, and doctors. Students also shared what they were grateful for, including their families, the opportunity to go to school, and provision of food and clothing.

WIDOWS’ CHILDREN WORKSHOP

Our second storytelling workshop was hosted for the middle school and high school children of the widows in the Chi Ruoth ma Jahera and Mond Ruoth ma ok Nyal groups. In this workshop, four youth role models, who also grew up as widows’ children, shared their personal stories of overcoming adversity. With their stories, they challenged the 23 widows’ children in the workshop to have a personal vision for their future, and to be determined, focused, persistent and patient in achieving that vision. Their stories highlighted the need for courage and taking initiative over self-pity, perseverance over losing hope, and forgiveness over bitterness, to overcome life’s challenges.

In small groups, the widows’ children created short dramas that demonstrated the various challenges they face. The issues ranged from being sent home from school for lack of school fees, managing boy-girl relationships, dealing with peer-pressure, and balancing household responsibility with school work. These dramas also showcased their talents, with some winning the admiration of the audience with their capacity to vividly bring their stories to life on the stage. We hope to create more of these opportunities and to use storytelling and drama as a pathway to expressions of creativity and talents, and for finding solutions to the challenges the widows’ children face.

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: KITENGE CREATIONS

Widows have continued pursuing opportunities for business to support both themselves and the whole widows’ collective. Two widows with sewing skills have begun creating items such as pot holders, purses, ties, and hair accessories for sale. These crafts will be sold in both local and international markets, starting with selling at a small shop in Kisumu and sending some abroad with friends for fundraising on International Widows’ Day (June 23). Some of these creations are shown in the photo below. If you have ideas for further items that would be popular (we have received recent suggestions of everything from book covers to doll clothing), please email us and let us know! We also welcome ideas for new markets for these products.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: INTERNATIONAL GUESTS

This month we had the opportunity to host Bethany Dixon, a friend of Jackie’s from university who helped with Konyango’s first project of starting Mboto Sunrise School in 2012. As a writing teacher by training, Bethany helped with the storytelling workshops and also supported Jackie in continued curriculum development for the widows’ leadership project that will begin later in 2019. The widows and their children enjoyed sharing their experiences and stories with a “mzungu.” The creative discussions we all held provided new ideas and inspiration for further steps in this work. Bethany writes:

“The opportunity to spend time here and see the amazing work that the widows, their children, and the Konyango team are doing has been incredible. The hope and joy we have shared is infectious, and I am grateful for the ideas we have shared for facilitating the achievements and dreams of widows and their children. I have deep respect for the way that the widows are leading their own empowerment and how the Konyango team is working alongside them. God is truly moving in these communities, and the hard work and deep dedication of every person involved is making those miracles possible. I look forward to continuing to walk together and share hope, ideas, and dreams.”

We are grateful for the way that our local community can partner with friends and supporters all over the world, and we deeply appreciate your prayers and support.

We also invite you to join us on June 23, International Widows’ Day as we celebrate our community and work towards the dreams of the widows and their children. If you are interested in supporting us through a prayer or fundraising event on that day, please contact us.