Children's Village Blog
Graduation Ceremony

Graduation Ceremony at the Children’s Village
By Jessie Cronan, teacher and volunteer


On October 24, the Rift Valley Children’s Village hosted the graduation of the Standard VII students from our Charter school, Gyteghi Primary School. It was easily the most elaborate, and widely attended, ceremony this area has ever seen. Dignitaries ranging from the District Commissioner (a position roughly akin to president of the region) to the District Education officer, and our own Mama India, presided over the 6 hour long ceremony, held in our Community Center/Recreation Hall. 63 students graduated from Standard VII.

First we heard the students from Gyteghi marching from school to the Children’s Village, singing in kiSwahili. The students sat in the front of the room: behind them, benches filled with proud parents, teachers, and curious members of the community. The graduates looked as if they had been scrubbed to within an inch of their lives, sat front and center, on rows of white benches. Between the lengthy speeches, the students read poems, sang songs they had written themselves, and performed dances choreographed by our Student Teachers. When the time came to hand out prizes and diplomas, excited parents rushed forward to put wreathes of fake flowers and glitter around the graduates’ necks. It was a wonderful mixture of pomp and silliness, a day which celebrated the tremendous effort these students put forth over the past year. They have developed a special bond as they made a commitment to learning by staying after school and coming in on Saturdays.

While the ceremony itself, and the elaborate lunch which followed, were wonderful, what was really inspiring was the amount of effort the entire community put forth to make this celebration possible. The School Committee, composed of parents, teachers, and village leaders, was the driving force behind the event. They convinced the District Commissioner to attend, invited the rest of the dignitaries, and mobilized the entire parent body to participate in the preparations. To say that this level of community participation is unprecedented would be an understatement. (Last year the graduation ceremony was attended by a total of 7 parents – one of whom arrived so intoxicated that he fell off of his chair during the Head Teacher’s speech.) This year an army of mamas arrived the day before the ceremony, and worked tirelessly, until the moment the singing began, preparing a lunch that could have fed 300 people. The Decorating Committee, comprised of teachers, covered the Rec hall in streamers and signs, kangas and flowers, until the space was all but unrecognizable.

Classes at Gyetighi Primary School were cancelled in the three days leading up to graduation. All the students scrubbed the classrooms, re-planted the gardens, and picked up every stray leaf or piece of paper that blew onto the property. When they weren’t cleaning they were rehearsing – marching and singing in formations, a military academy would admire. The students and the teachers were bursting with pride when the District Commissioner drove into Gyteghi’s courtyard. This was their school, and they were incredibly proud of it.
In many ways, graduation highlights the incredibly exciting changes that have taken place at Gyteghi in the past year alone. The increased role of the Children’s Village at the school is evident not only in the 2 new classrooms we have built, and the 7 teachers and 5 Student Teachers which we sponsor, but also in the new excitement surrounding education which has exhilarated the entire community. The students who graduated on Friday spent the better part of last year attending extra classes after school and on Saturdays, classes they voluntarily showed up for, and which dedicated teachers gave up their free time to teach.

In many ways, graduation was a celebration of all that is possible when the community and the staff and volunteers at the Children’s Village work together. For the first time parents celebrated their children’s accomplishments – often with tears in their eyes. Families scrimped and saved to buy small gifts for the graduates, and parents gave up a day’s work in the coffee fields (no small sacrifice) to watch their children receive diplomas. It was a day no one will forget, a celebration of the power of education to inspire and change lives of these children.