“Each day leave it better than you found it.”

In June, we officially launched our first boot camp at Daraja Academy where over 50 students were taught a curriculum about skills such as design thinking, coding, and circuitry. For one week, three of our team members, Jeff, Victor, and Leah, facilitated interactive sessions where girls at Daraja had the opportunity to practice skills such as innovation and collaboration in real-time. Especially due to the added challenges posed by COVID, designing and implementing the boot camp was no easy feat. And yet, thanks to the efforts and contributions of passionate individuals and organizations, we were able to adapt to the constantly changing circumstances. We are incredibly grateful for our partnership with TME Education, who provided technical equipment such as Arduino kits. Kelvin, the electronics and tech expert who helped teach the girls, is an Ambassador who is also facilitated with TME Education. We are also incredibly grateful for the financial backing we received from the grant provided by SAP. Finally, without the guidance of staff from Daraja Academy such as Victoria, Dennis, and Mercy, we could not have designed the tailored, context-specific boot camp experience. In Part 1 of our Boot Camp series, we will be highlighting the experiences of our three team members who led the sessions.

Even before the official start date of the boot camp, Jeff, Victor, and Leah were hard at work. The preparation for the boot camp was rigorous for Jeff, as he served as the central point in terms of logistics. Since he was the only one that had visited Daraja Academy in-person prior to the boot camp, he took on the responsibility of serving as an informal tour guide for the new team members, making sure that no one was ever deprived of fun, comfort, or good food. Together, the three of them bonded on their daily forty minute commute from their rented apartment to Daraja Academy, singing musicals as they drove over the bumpy road. In addition to the commute, Jeff, Victor, and Leah enjoyed getting to know each other better at their informal breakfast meetings. At these meetings, they debriefed about what went well the day before and what they needed to improve upon. They also distributed the tasks for the day based upon their strengths, gathered the necessary materials required in addition to the workbooks, and found examples in the forms of interactive videos and stories to help the design thinking lessons come to life. Ahead of the sessions, Jeff, Victor, and Leah went over the content of the boot camp repeatedly, developing teaching methods they thought would best engage the students. Their goal was to make the lessons as interactive and understandable as possible, challenging the girls to learn new skills without overwhelming them.

When they first arrived at Daraja Academy, Jeff, Victor, and Leah were both anxious yet excited for what the week would hold in store. After months of creating, planning, and collaborating, the time had finally arrived to deliver the boot camp intervention. Victor still remembers that on the first car ride to Daraja, he worried about finding the right words to tell the girls, figuring he would emphasize the importance of education. But as soon as they arrived and were greeted by the two Daraja students chosen to give them a tour of the campus—Brenda and Irene—Victor realized that this was not a message he needed to reiterate to the girls. Instead, it was a message they already felt in their very core. When talking to Brenda and Irene about careers and life in general, it was clear to see how much they were genuinely motivated to learn and leave a meaningful mark on their communities. Daraja Academy is a school unlike any other, bustling with life, curiosity, passion, and togetherness. It truly is a breeding ground for the next generation of changemakers, and to experience that first-hand was both humbling and inspiring.

Not only are the students amazing, but so too are the teachers. Jeff, Victor, and Leah were so grateful for how welcoming and invested the teachers were in helping out with the boot camps. It was evident that the teachers did not just view their jobs as a way of simply supporting themselves or of teaching the curriculum and leaving it at that. Instead, they developed a close-knit family-type relationship with students, serving as supporters who students could talk to about any issues affecting their lives. In fact, one of Victor and Leah’s favorite parts of the boot camp experience was participating in the “family lunches.” During these family lunches, teachers are assigned to a group of 7-8 students. As they enjoy tasty meals together, they crack jokes with one another and talk about a range of topics. 

Even though the School for a Village team members entered the experience excited to teach, in many ways, they learned just as much as any of the boot camp participants. From his interactions with the students at Daraja Academy, Victor realized that it really is all in the head. Though the girls from Daraja Academy come from homes of material poverty, they do not allow their mindsets to be chained by this fact. Rather, their dreams and aspirations remain boundless, and they are solution-oriented when thinking about the challenges in their own communities. For Leah, this experience was one marked by self-growth. By the end of the boot camp, she left a more confident public speaker, facilitator, and collaborator. For Jeff, he came to the realization that the essence of the boot camp was not about the coding or design curriculum. In actuality, the root purpose was about the behavioral and mindset change they wanted to inspire in the girls and the larger community—to highlight the message that no problem is too complex or overwhelming to be solved. That by breaking it down into tangible and context-tailored steps, some resolution can be reached. 

Jeff, Victor, and Leah have much to be proud of themselves for. Victor and Leah were proud of themselves for creating a design thinking curriculum that was generally understandable to the girls. But even when certain examples that were in the workbooks may not have been as relatable, Victor and Leah were able to adapt and find ways to ensure the concepts were as clear to the girls as they could be. Jeff was proud of the integral role he played in fostering a safe, collaborative space in which the rest of the team members felt comfortable using their talents and sharing their opinions about what the boot camp should look like. In terms of the Daraja students, Jeff was proud that he encouraged them to look at the bigger picture. He challenged them to think of all the innovative ways they could apply the skills they learned in the classroom setting to the real-world.

So, what is next for the boot camps? Based on teacher and student feedback from Daraja Academy, the boot camp was an incredibly meaningful experience and one which they hope to continue in the future. Thus, we hope that in the future, the boot camps will be integrated into the Daraja Academy curriculum, specifically for the girls in the Transition Program. In the Transition Program, girls who have graduated from high school but have not yet matriculated into college have the opportunity to continue learning so that they can be as prepared as possible for higher education, careers, and adult life. We would love to see the boot camps run autonomously, but with more intensity and intricacy in terms of the things the girls build. For instance, Victor envisions a scenario in which the girls are able to flesh out actual prototypes or business models, going more in-depth into what each step of the process (financing, marketing, etc.) would entail. For the model to be self-sustaining, we are hoping to empower teachers to facilitate the sessions, as teachers certainly play an integral role in the execution of the boot camps. Lastly, we are so excited to expand our program not only vertically, but horizontally to different schools across Kenya. We want to make this program accessible for as many high school students in Kenya as possible, with specific efforts directed towards youth who have been affected by mass incarceration. Jeff is excited by the prospect that learning how to code can meaningfully transform the life of someone who has previously been on the other side of the law.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Boot Camp series, where we will share the perspectives and takeaways of the staff and students at Daraja Academy!