What can we learn from a rural school in Kenya? with principal Carol Moraa
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I know that some of the kids have cell phones. I know that they have .

instagram yeah tiktok and know ah in tiktok.

you know these are teenagers with access to twenty four hour wifi. There are no different than our kids. And yet you say that they are just .

not addicted. And no, not. They're not. We have wife all over, but we not find them on internet all the time. You will literally find them in the gaz sitter telling a story. You should walk around here during bricks. You'll find them sitting around the compound just telling stories and these wifi, and they have their phones, but they are more interesting, these stories that they tell.

I love that. I went to kenya this year and had the opportunity to visit the mara, the rural area of kenya. The views are spectacular and the roads are unpaved.

Kids running around, screaming and laughing, wanting you to throw Candy from the car. And yes, people do actually live in mud hutt. There is a lot of poverty. And in the middle of all of that is the kisari girl school and the legacy college, of which Carol mora runs both. I had the opportunity to visit both the schools, and I was absolutely blown away.

IT turns out, when people aren't forced to go to school, but they choose to go to school, they show up with a motivation like you've never seen before. This is a bit of optimism. Hi kara.

Hey, say, mom.

it's it's such a treat to talk to you. So when I came to visit you, I was so inspired by your students, by your learners. And we have to, we have to tell everybody, which is in your schools, the students aren't students, their learners, and the teachers aren't teachers.

their .

education facilitating facilitators. Ors, which I love, just start there. Why the change in in language? What's wrong with teacher and student?

Very good question to start with. So we've worked in kenya for over twenty five years with the communities, and primarily, we worked with the primary schools where the government schools. And then what we do is we build to the schools and we provide school meals and we train the the teachers in the primary schools.

When we go into a community, we are not experts. The community members are experts in their communities. They know their chAllenges.

We don't. We don't go there and we tell them, we feel like you guys need clean water. We feel like you guys need a classroom. No, the community members know their chAllenges.

And so when they are practiced with this idea, we said, okay, let's have a sit, dom, as we always do before we partner with any communities. They said, in our schools, teachers are fired. You know, by that time we had corporal punishment.

And so they were, teacher was like a demigod, and they said, and we said together, we want to school where it's a community we don't feel each other we facilitated. We make easy facility that comes from the letting out for meaning, make easy. So we make easy the landing process.

And in this cool, we are also long as I am a lonna, as much as I am a teacher, i'm a lana. And so we are all in the landing process. We are always learning that one of our values, we are always learning.

I came to visit your schools when I was in the in the mara in kenya. The schools that they had were basically mud huts, right? yeah. And subtitle to the elements, dirty, cramped, hot in the summer. And one of the first things you did is you came in and you built proper walls, proper floors, proper rules, bigger rooms, nicer desks, so the kids have a nice place to come to school. And it's amazing what a difference that makes.

And I love that you showed us, you left one of the old buildings there, just as a reminder of how things are Better, especially for the Young kids, I guess, who don't even know what it's like to go to school in the old, in the old school house. So that's the primary school. And I came and visited your old girl's high school.

I've never met such smart, driven girls. They get to set their own schedules, right? So the way that works is because they have to help out at home.

There's a subsistance farming a lot of these kids come from, and so they help out during the harvest and they help out at home. But then they leave to come to school for three months, right? Like a boarding school, yes. And then they go back for how long?

For three weeks to a month.

So they go three weeks to a month and then come back to school for three months and in three, two weeks to months. So they they had his baLance. And when they come to school, they set their own schedule.

right? Yes, yes. Now can you please tell us what that schedule is?

yes. So as the founding principle, when we started at the school, there was one of the things I was really looking for to all I was looking for to a school where the lunn's value the school and are proud of their school. This is our school.

We set up our school schedule, decide on what we want when you set up something you own IT and you are proud of IT. And that was the the thought behind that. And so for the scheduled, when we had them sit down, they actually drafted a schedule and like, oh my goodness, we want to wake up at three thirty and we want to go to bed at eleven P M.

And so we had to negotiate. We told them, yes, we know education is all you have because you want to be changed makers in your communities. You want to give your best.

You want to be the pride of your communities. You need some sleep. So we negotiated, and they wake up at four thirty m, and they go to bed at ten P M.

They wake about four thirty am. Let's be clear here, they wake about four thirty to start school.

They are supposed to wake up up for thirty, but by four they'll always be up. So we always tell them, please go back to bed, you know, even in the evening at ten, they go to bed and they have spotlights. And they still want to study because, you know, for them, this is all they have.

They have come from very humble backgrounds, and they change their families. They want to change the trajectory of their families, so this is all they have, and they want to give their best. So we have to really just switch off the lights and tell them.

please sleep. What is IT that makes these kids so much more motivated than your average western student is that that the western students have too much and they take IT for granted. What is IT about the culture of your school that these kids are so motive, and they're motivated for the first time, they are motivated for all four years of high school. What is your theory .

is an intrinsic motivation. That's the most important thing here. It's not extreme.

We don't push that motivation in them. They are motivated from we dim when they come into school. You know, just a brief background.

These are kids who most of them are fast generations to go to school in their families. Their mamas were in arranged marriages from fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years with twelve children. That's all they know.

And they can see this suffering. Most of them, their old siblings, haven't even gone to school. And so they see their families, and they want to lift their families out of poverty.

And that is the what they use. I want to be the light of my family. You will always hear that.

I want to be a all model in my community. I want to to be this. And so IT is an intrinsic motivation that drives them.

I want to be the light of my family. So these kids come to school with a real sense of purpose cause it's not just because they have to go to school. They are literally driven by a sense of purpose cause unlike a lot of students.

I think in the west. Yeah, I can share with you one story.

please.

of one lana called the Sharon and you met Sharon. So a few years ago, there's a girl who walked into my office at a one twelve P M. Looking very tired and hungry.

And of course, I gave her food fast, and we shut down to talk. And then he told me, you know, miss, I started my journey at five am. I am a sibling in my family in the middle.

My older siblings haven't gone to school. I SAT for my graduate exam. indeed. Well, it's been two weeks since the great lines reported.

I haven't had a chance to go to school because my mom is not able to. SHE comes from a single parent family. My mom is not able to.

My other siblings did get this chance. I want this chance. And he came in and he was two weeks late.

The school was already for, because someone, we get hundreds of applications and we can only take a few. And so we shut down. And I told her, i'm sorry, but unfortunately, this school is full.

And you could see he broke down and he got emotional, and he looked at to me and he said, I have to get an opportunity. Whatever you do, you have to give me a chance. I remit was lunchtime, and the girls were on the pavements, going to the dining hall for lunch, and SHE pointed.

You told me, you see these girls, you see how smart they are in their uniforms. That is what I want. I want to work in this pavements.

I want to be that smart. I want to change my family. I want to approve my family out of poverty, and you have to give me this chance and I said, oh god, I love you.

I love you resilience in, you know. And I just had to stretch a little father and give her this opportunity. And you should have seen her eyes when I told her that you're going to get this chance SHE lit up and he said, I will not let you down.

I want to assure you I loved her confidence. And I told her, your parent also has for coming, because we need to get this commitment from from your parents too. So the parents came in the next day and the next week.

Now is the third week, because the other alliances had reported. SHE came in, and we give her this brand new uniform and brand new shoes. And he was so excited.

And in the cause of four years at kay, Sharon was amazing. SHE exert academically in drama, music festivals. SHE was the best actress in competitions.

SHE, except in games. In great eleven was this whole president. And you could see that confidence in her.

And he did a gradual of exam, did very well and and as per at legacy college and SHE told me, I want to be an entrepreneur when I am home, my mom and gadgets in small businesses, and I always help her and I want to apply to that business. I want us to do business. And SHE joined legacy college, the first class of business management and social entrepreneurship.

She's graduating in a man last week. SHE presented a business proposal in the lions then for a seed capital to start her own business when they went for internship, the company that you went for internship in, they actually told her, you're amazing and we wanted to keep you. Can you study online and continue working with us? And he told them, no, i'm not done with my studies.

I want to complete my studies, then I can look into that. SHE tells me he wants to be an employer once SHE clears, once SHE becomes an entrepreneur. So these are the kinds of lunas that we have who deserve this opportunity. And this scholarship helps them to be able to not only change their lives, their families, by their communities.

what? What's your journey? Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the western part of kenya, so like Victoria, around the Victoria. I went to school in more university, elder ret. Then immediately graduated. I was very lucky.

No, I will, let's say I cleared I I finished my final exam on tasty and I told my dad the next morning when I came home, I said, i'm going out to look for a job and I had just done my last paper. I don't even have my degree already. And I went out, I went to international schools.

It's very hard to get a job in the international schools. And so I went and I was intervened. Very, very lucky.

There is actually an opportunity because i'm trained in england and literature facilitation. And I got that job immediately. And I was like, yes, thank god.

So I got this job in this international school, and it's in an urban area, you know. I mean, my only twin is very active and just having fun. And then after a few years, I see an advent in the newspaper.

This, a school that starting in the mara and it's looking for a principle. And i'm twenty something and we are actually with my staff member. We are seated together in the library with other staff members.

And I joke and I tell them guys am a plan for this principal job and they all laugh. And they like principles in their forties and fifties. You're only in your twenties you want to get IT, of course.

And I said, watching. And so I apply for this job and I go for the interview. Neither be so.

There's a first interview. So they interview me and they tell me this is just the first interview. The second interview is in the school in the mara, where is very dry. You are used to life in the urban centers and .

and the mara of the people is in the countryside. Yeah, it's the rural area. It's the rural area of kenya.

So we have to interview you on the ground to see if this is a place you can. And then we come for the second interview. And interestingly, the ladies I was with, all of them ahead, teachers accept me.

And the one who didn't have not even deputy teacher. And then we come for this interview, and i'm like, jesus cries, this is the place. And he was so dry by then, because he had a strange, we only had one tea shop, a very tiny shop, they know.

And then the school, so we are interviewed and I I love nature and so I see the hill. And i'm like, woo o am used to urban life, but this is a place of really love because of the peaceful nature and the wake looks. And then once you are down with the interview, some girls walking some Young girls, and we are told, guys, these are some of the lands that are going to join your fast class.

And I get a chance to chat with them. These gas cannot look in the eyes. These gas cannot construct like simple sentences correctly, like the chances. And I said, I feel this is the place where my services are needed more compared where I am.

And I said, if I get this opportunity, I embrace and when I was called that I had got in that opportunity, of course, there are mixed, the reactions i'm coming from this nice international school I am teaching diplomat, to where I feel i'm really going to create a difference in the lives of these Young girls who are going to get this goal opportunity, to get a full scholarship, to get an education. A Young girl would have been married of a Young girl who, without this opportunity, would be a fourth wife somewhere. Old man, I feel this is the place I need to be.

And I resigned from my job. And I came here. And Simon, i've never looked back, and i've been called for three job offers with almost triple the salaries in nairobi, every other place in urban areas.

But the fulfillment I get from working with these Young people play giving this opportunity. We've had sever over six hundred graduates right now from kuni. We actually have the ten graduation celebration this year, and the alone are all out here in the communities.

They've come back to their community. We have one of them who works with treasury, and she's the district auditor. SHE audits the district accounts.

We have high school teachers. We have nursers at baraka hospital. And you know what, Simon, one thing that I love, that they come back to their communities, I love that.

I love that they're able to come back and give back paid ford. Their communities become role models. They are school.

When we started kiss oni, we had only one girl graduating great age from that primary school. And service landing is a very important aspect of our landing at this school. And so every lana identifies a chAllenge in their community, and they go and help sort out that chAllenge. And so this goal, this one girl said, the chAllenge in my community is got get married at a very old age.

So what I want is I want to go and explain these Young girls and their mothers on the importance of educating a girl and their fathers too, but in a respectful way, you know, we respect our elders, so how do we do this? And he went on for service landing. And as we speak, in the class of twenty twenty two, we had more girls graduate from that school than the boys.

So that is the power of these Young girls going back to their communities and being role models. And the Young girls say, I want to go to kiss a oni. I want to be like also. So that's the fulfillment I get. I go to bed in the evening, and I am just so grateful that i'm able to work with these amazing Young people.

I want to tell you an experience I had while I was there, and I want you to comment. I met people. I met the students.

I met some of the facilitators, the teachers. I went into the community, and we, we met one of them, went, what was your names? Yes, yes, mam.

Jane, who was amazing, this wonderful leader of a community, who was lifting her, her community and helping them in a way that he was, he was remarkable. And I got a sense that we in the west, we visit africa, and we feel sorry for these people who have less than us. And we look at ourselves how much we have and how much opportunity we have.

And we feel bad, right? And there's something I recognized, which is, yes, they have a hard life. There's no question. There is struggle. And mama jan has .

is a hard life but .

he was happy and SHE smiled. And the kids who these are um they come from humble homes and they don't have a lot and you see them playing with a stick in a tire and they're laughing the whole time. I read a study recently here in amErica that children who have fewer toys have Better imaginations.

And so we in the west, we think all these poor children have no toys. And yet they're playing in their minds. They are playing in imaginations, and they're happy.

And I I started to get the sense that we are so addicted to wealth, we are so addicted to money in the west, that we look at those without money, and we we feel guilt and we feel sorry for what they don't have. And it's like being a hero addict, looking at people and feeling sorry for them that they don't feel are high. But we are the ones were dying of diabetes and cancer and heart disease.

Nobody in your community is dying of heart disease and there's lower cases of of of cancer. And yes, there's struggle. And yes, there's harder.

And yes, we want to help them. And as you said, they're lifting themselves. The motivated ones want to serve their communities and serve their families.

Very true. I am very true. We are very rich. We are very wealthy. The community members feel wealthy.

Do you know why? Because they're happy because they love their community. They interconnect veness this sense of community. I was watching actually one of your conversations and you said we don't build trust by helping. We don't be trust by .

offering our help.

offering our king for ah we will trust by asking for IT this community members you know and I am I was thinking about that in in the sense of this community members, there's a lot of trust. If one one family member if one family doesn't have dinner, for example, they'll just go to the next family. The family will just offer dinner to them.

There is this feeling of wealthy. We don't have all those things, but we are happy. There is this love. There is this sense of community. When there is a chAllenge, we have the elders that we go to.

You know, I had the opportunity of visiting north amErica several times, and I know when you want to have coffee with someone, you schedule, tell you maybe two to three weeks for a thirty minute offices for me. I just walk into a home and and we have tea and we chat and we laugh. So there is that sense of fulfilment because, yes, you don't have much, but you're happy you have this community around you that you feel they got my back. So that sense of interconnecting veness really maxes just feel like we have everything we need.

What is IT like a nairobi? Nairobi disconnected, more lonely, more money obsessed?

I robe as this individual, alison. And it's good for bringing this up because I could only go mine. And I was just talking about this last week. And we are analyzing the impact of solid urban areas growing ing in the rural areas.

What is the effect of this? How does this change? Will this individualism be brought from the urban areas to this rural areas where we have this beautiful community? And yes, in their robes there.

But in the communities here, what I have seen for the fifteen years have been around, it's grown. This place has grown from one shop to now. We have several shops.

These electricity, I wasn't n't electricity when I came here. But that sense of community is still there. Actually, the villages have meetings every single week.

At eight I M, I don't like, wow, eight I M in the morning, the villagers meet in one person's family. They go there. They have tea. They talk about the chAllenges they facing as a community.

How can they help each other? This, this other was not going to school. How can we support? So that sense of community still there, and that gave me hope. That gave me hope.

You've learned a tremendous amount for living in that community for fifteen years. So you are the perfect person to teach me. You are the perfect person to pass the lessons on that you yourself have learned from these magical human beings because your life is different. Now, having lived fifteen years in the mara, what have you learned from them that has major life Better? That you want everyone in the world to know.

What I have learned is the importance of cultural values in steel in them when they're very Young. In these communities, they have very strong, a strong sense of cultural values. They have sense of responsibility, bin community, you, courage, honesty, hardware.

And this is instill in the children from when they're Young. The girls know when I wake up, I have to clean the house, I have to go for you what, I have to get fire out. The boys know I have to take care of the cattle.

And it's not first. It's done out of love, in knowing that I have to do this for my family. It's they're happy doing IT. And so when they come into school, building on cultural values is one of the pillars of our philosophy because we realized about brainer, where the kids going to school and all they wanted to go live in these towns and everything, because they feel maybe that their backgrounds are not very good, the place to stay.

But ask yourself, why is IT that they learn as we've graduated from our schools, go back into their communities? It's because when they come into the legacy college into key serono, what we do is we build on these cultural values that we've come with from home. This responsibility, the sense of hardwork, and then we have cultural afraid, is where the community members come in.

And still this in them, they have that pride of going back to their communities when they graduate. That's why they still want to go back because this isn't still in them and IT, it's not lost along the way. The chAllenge we have is this values are lost along the way where we admire the western life and we don't want to go back to our roots.

So it's up to us and our schools to build on this. And i've seen universities i've started having, like our cultural vans and you not talking about our cultures and going back to our roots. So that's a discussion that I started, and that's something we've been doing at our schools.

and that has helped when you read the news or watch television or even the times you've visited america. When you look at us, what makes you feel sad for us? What do you feel sorry for us?

I love you guys. It's the individual, the individualism lifestyle like it's it's like I don't know you, I can say hi to you, you live your life. I live my life. I I I love the sense of community where you know, i've got your back, you've got my bag. I can just pop in and you know, we are friends like the sense of friendship.

I think when you know you have someone whom you can count on and you can check to forget about just family members, but someone like a friend that you know you can talk to, you really feel this sense of love, this sense of acceptance, this sense of community. So I feel we have that a lot. And I I don't think you guys have that much.

I think you're right. And you know, it's I have to say it's embarrassing that I had to write books about leadership, which are really about how to treat people. And then I meet mam jane, and she's like the most gifted neural leader i've ever met and not because he studied leadership for hurts.

Just common sense, yes, that of course i'm going to look after the people in my community and of course, and it's worth telling her story a little bit, which is SHE set out to help the other mamas in the community understand the importance of having proper ventilation so you're not inhaling the smoke from your cooking. The importance of having a toilet outside, the importance of cleaning up the trash on your property to prevent disease, and all of these things. He helped the community understand these things and that he wanted to build her own house.

Yes, I remember she's saying SHE SHE walked for hours, four hours, something like that, to go into town to sell her wares, to sell whatever SHE had from her animals milk. I think that was. And then SHE slowly build a lot of money, and then went back into town and found a building, said, I want to build a house and gives him the money.

He, he says, this is not even. This is enough to build a wall. yeah. And he says, so can build a wall. Then, and years later, years later, he finally has a house that SHE so proud of. And SHE kept the mud hut out in the garden, so to remind her where SHE comes from. But the thing, one of the things that I found so remark about her, he taught the other mothers how to save money and how to build their businesses in the day two can build houses. And the excitement SHE has that they are building bigger, nicer houses than hers.

Yes, that there was no jealousy .

or competition, but rather unbelievable pride that the people that he helped were doing Better than he did.

Yes, that is the community we work with. You should see the report effect of that the members that we work with, that the women employ santa who have out of their savings, built beautiful houses and is a very important point. It's not jealousy.

It's happy for your neighbor for doing well. How can we build each other? How can we help each other go up and not bring each other down? How can we support to another, lift each other? So that is the sense of community here.

My ideal world would be that everyone whose listen to this comes to kenya, comes to tomorrow, visits your schools, sees and meet these kids. Volunteers, if they can, but just to learn and bring backs on the lessons back home. But obviously that's not gonna happen.

And so this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you, which is, I want us to learn the lessons of the mara. I want us to learn the lessons from your learners and your facilitators, ors and your community. What is the first step you think we have to take?

I understand that we need to build a sense of community, have people to watch our backs and able to trust and walk to people and say, but how does one start? Like, how do you teach the Young people the values of the community when they have nothing? Because I think you're right.

I think when you say, what are american values, I don't know that anybody could recite what american values are. And at least if they did, they wouldn't be the same from household to household. And we definitely don't instal them in our students.

We don't teach values. We don't teach national values at school. And i'm wondering, is that the solution that we have a long term plan where we start teaching national values to our Young people, that they learn these things?

That's a very good question. And I remember for me when I was in school, we were taught national values. I remember that was one of the the tropics that we were taught.

And yes, the yg, once here I thought that, and I think it's is start from the family level. So because, yes, you can take this at the school. But what about at the family level? How is the family unit? It's easier for us because it's taught from the family and it's a community affair.

Everybody knows you have to act this way. You know, at kerri, we have the guidance and counseling room where we have peer to peer counseling. And so in alone, a, for example, as a chAllenger, talk to each other.

So this is where we are supposed to start. If a child has a problem, the other one can help guide this child. So IT is that .

from the student, they have go to each other before they come to a teacher.

they go to each other, they sit down in that room, they help each other. That's why we have very few discipline issues at the school, because then land as each other, other keep us. You know, when you come into great night, you are given a mental in great ten who is like your mother.

Then in grey level, this now you are, you grown to a grandparent. At great twelve, you are a great grandparent. So we have this family unit, and then we are family units with education facilitated in charge of each.

And so when you go to eupeptic you, it's maybe something that's beyond then you can welcome your family facilitator to come in. They celebrate bad days in these families when a person is behaved. For example, we go as a school to this family and we consult their family.

We work if you know, we help fetch water, we help cook. We are one family. And that is why starts IT starts from home. Then when they get into school, that is in, is built upon.

What are the national values that you were told at school?

Well, I was in grade five or six. One is, of course, prad for your country. The other one was honesty, responsibility hardwork. Just you, these values, these values, that that the cultural values are talking about, they had the ones we were taught.

And that's why even in school, we have responsibility for everything, the environment we take care of, the environment we don't employ workers to do that for us. We would do that and would be proud of. You've been assigned an area and you've killed IT so well and you feel the sense of pride.

You know, it's not like you give someone a valuable clean of clean house and they are grumpy for us. It's a sense of pride when you do this. So how do you steal this sense of pride? Your kids, for example.

you know one of the most for filling jobs in in the west, one one profession that is unbelievably, very, very, very high fulfillment and happiness is construction. Because they build something, they see what they built with their own hands. Yeah, contractors.

And then they go on to the next project and they get and I I had some worked in, and I was talking to the contractor, and I I told him that he goes, yeah, I absolutely love my job. I get to work hard and see what I built. And then I going get to do IT again. yes. And this idea of seeing, seeing, you know working hard for something and and then there's another report that I just read recently about children who have who do chores.

Children who have raised with chores actually feel greater sense of the filming for their work later in life and actually are much more of happier and more responsible, in general, the idea of doing hard work and seeing the fruits of your labor, and not intellectual work, not solving a problem, not a math problem, no, but physically cleaning up something, and then looking and seeing what you've done is cleaning your room or cleaning the garden or whatever IT is, no. And this idea of contribution and work, do you have social media and you, I know that some of the kids have cell phones. I know they have instagram.

Yeah, tiktok and know that yeah in tiktok.

you know, do you find that those things are hurting their sense of community, are hurting their sense of commodity, or are they much more in control of social media and the internet and and cell phones at sea? Like, are they addicted like our kids?

And no, not. They're not, in fact, one of the debates because they have debates every wednesday. Debating one of IT is always, how do you control yourself, you know? How do you manage social media? And that is an area that they keep talking about.

He at the college is compared to the high school. The high school students don't come with funds to school, but for the college learners, they have these funds. You know, and I remember there is a time, we are we we are conducting a survey to just see what is the addiction level at these kids, so addicted to these cell phones.

And we actually realized, no, because we have wifi all over, but you will not you not find them on internet all the time. You actually find them in the city telling a story and you are like, wow, now that's beautiful. That's how we go up. It's not like you have, you know, all those E, F phones and you just on your phone and and that was so proud of them for that.

When we have a strong sense of community and when we have strong friends, we are less acceptable to addiction. And what you're telling me is these kids raise ed with a strong sense of community, because these are teenagers. These are teenagers with access to tiktok and access to instagram, and they have access to twenty four hour wifi.

There are no different than our kids. And yet you say that they are just not addicted. They use these things, and then they put them away, and they spend time with each other. And your schools are proof that a strong sense of community and strong relationships make us less acceptable to addiction value.

Very three should work around here during bricks at lunch break. At tea break, you'll find them seated around the compound just telling stories. And these wifi, and they have their phones, but they are more grown. These stories that they tell.

I love that people don't believe me, you, when I say that community is the thing and friends are the thing, and will all become less than like people don't believe me and people. But now, now I have your school to as further data to prove. These are children.

These are teenagers. Yeah, I love your school. I love what you're doing. IT was an honour for me to come visit all the schools. I saw the primary school, I saw the girls high school, I saw the college, and I met the most motivated band of students i've ever met my life. And smart man, those girls are smart.

And Simon, gratitude is a big pot. Gratitude also plays a very big role. We are taught from when we are Young to appreciate whatever we have.

Appreciate, just appreciate that. And I love that in your causes. We have a topic on gratitude that's very, very important.

Gratitude makes you fulfilled. You may not be wealthy, but you, you, you grateful every single day for this opportunity to go to school. You are grateful for this opportunity to have a meal on the table. The gratitude plays of big grown.

I think this is where abundance is hurting, right? Which is when we have less, we are grateful for what we have. And when we have more, we take for granted everything we have.

And because these kids know where they came from and they know what they have, and they know what they have is special IT makes me understand why they won to wake up at four thirty and good a bit at ten every day, not to play video games, not to be on tiktok, but to study and do homework and be with each other. I understand IT IT, as you said, its gratitude is is a huge part of this. I'm tired of the west thinking they can teach africa. I'm tired of hearing IT, and I think it's about time africa taught the west.

I think we can learn from each other.

I learn more from visiting you for a few days than I have in a long, long time. I can tell you that .

we can learn from each other. I ve learned a lot from the causes in your leadership curriculum. P, and, you know, we've, I actually met, you know, something interesting is this, must say, parents, the old men. Actually.

I is the biggest strike in the row, right? One, the biggest .

problem, yes, which is the masi maro masi community. And so you find an old man whose data graduated from our schools in two thousand fifteen, the first class. He was actually here on tuesday, and he came, he was looking for me.

And I said, yes, I just going to say, hi, how are you doing, you know? And it's not he. He always comes. So this parents coming, the deductor graduated over nine years ago.

Six years ago, when we have a parents meeting, they come and they say, we are familiar, are still community, this is still our school as much as my children. And a longer year, we are still family. And so when he came, I shared with him the leadership curricular lum, you know, on your courses, and we discussed.

And then I asked him, how would you and this with our leadership here? And he had a great ideas. He talked to me about age sets, you know, when we have different eight sets, and how can they teach one another? We were looking at each topic that he was talking to me about appreciation and gratitude.

I say, yes, we have that one here also. And he was like, yes, I want us to come and talk to the lana sia. I want us to teach them on this.

So we've actually had a very good connection with the community. I also met with mam jane, and we are talking about your curriculum and how we can magine with our karrick lum. So I have my jane, I have one, a lot of whom we I actually shared with you that karrick umm, that we've worked on and they'll be coming in for sessions. So that really beautiful. Yes.

I am so proud. Oh, I love that. Thanks so much for taking the time. I hope to come back and visit you and your you're learners again in the not too distant future. It's such a treat, and I learned so much from you when I came to visit, I was so inspired, and you've left me inspired again.

Thank you so much. Thank you one. And looking forward to welcome and you bring your friends along. Let's help each other. Let's support another. Yeah, we would love to give this opportunity to so many other anners to be able to get hundreds of applications. So we d love to just give this opportunity of the college for so many land to support their families and uplift them out of poverty.

Carl, thank you so much. Always a treat.

Thank you one. Thank you so much for welcoming me and giving me this opportunity to share about our culture. I love being here. I love working with these communities, and I can't wait. Welcome you back.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. santana. Santa ana.

yes.

If you enjoy this podcast would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcast. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, Simona dot com, for classes, videos and more. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other a bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company is produced and edited by Linda garbing ious, David jaw and David john. Our executive producers are hindred a conrad and greg rooter ship.