First of February round-up of FDC news 

As ever, our year has started on a busy note. We have taken on seven new Form 1 students who have all now started at school. It is very difficult deciding who to support out of a wonderful and worthy group of candidates who present themselves at our door in late December to early January, hoping to be taken on. We wish this fortunate group all the best as they start out at secondary school. May they continue to work hard and make the most of every opportunity.

Our year ended in equally busy mode, with the Christmas party and prize-giving. Many thanks again to all who attended – committee members, visitors, sponsors, parents and students alike. Our huge thanks must also go to KPS who once again kindly donated food for the party.

Our guest speaker, Anthony Muriithi, was such an inspiration to all our students and had a captivated audience. Despite being disabled by polio at the age of two, he has not let this disability stand in his way. He managed to attend Alliance High School and then Nairobi University. Not only has he found a fulfilling and interesting job at Safaricom, where he is a Team Leader, he has also married, has a baby boy, and has set up and runs his own business together with his lovely wife. With great humour and honesty he mapped out the challenges of his life and the great pleasure he derives from it. His main message was that in order to succeed in life one has to first want success and then be consistently determined and hard working to achieve it. He also spoke about self-esteem and insisted on the benefits  of staying strong and believing in yourself through good and bad. His famous phrase is that “You cannot control what people say and think about you, but you have control on how to react. What is important is, what do you think about yourself?”

He also shared what he referred to as his ‘five power points’ to start each day:

1.      I am the best

2.      I am a winner

3.      God is always with me

4.      I can do it

5.      Today is my day.

Everyone left at the end of the day wiser, inspired and possibly a little humbled by his positive attitude to life.

The party was also the occasion to recognise our prize winners. Below we see Solomon Murithi receiving his prize from Pop Gunson as top Form Three student and next is Jackson Kanyua receiving the prize for top Form Two student:

Solomon receives his prize from Pop Gunson

Jackson receives his prize from Pop Gunson

Proud parents and guests enjoy food provided by KPS

The full list of prize winners is below:

Form 1-3 best academic prizes:

Form 1             Grace Wambui

Form 2             Jackson Kanyua

Form 3             Solomon Murithi

Top in class prize:

John Kibue

Effort and participation prize – Karen PCEA Church luncheon:

Emily Ngina

Chairman’s Prize:

Jane Wanjiku

We wish you all the best for 2018 and hope that you will enjoy following FDC throughout the year. Thanks for your continuing support and generousity.

Congratulations to Lydiah Wachira on her PhD

We are so proud to congratulate FDC committee member, Lydiah, on attaining her PhD after almost five years' hard work taking a part time degree at the University of Nairobi - whilst working as well! 

Her topic was - PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' ATTITUDE ON THE ROLE OF CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ON SOCIAL COHESION IN NAIROBI COUNTY, KENYA -  a degree of the University of Nairobi.

Lydiah explains it in her own words: "As you must have realized while living in Kenya, social cohesion is a pertinent issue in a country divided along so many different ethnic groups. At attaining independence, the government realized there was need to unite a country which had been broken through the colonial policy of Divide and Rule. One of the vehicles to be  used to bring this unity was education - indeed one of the goals of education is EDUCATION FOR NATIONAL UNITY. The way this was to be done was by incorporating into the curriculum elements that would help Kenyan children be united within their diversity. The idea was to create Kenyans who would nevertheless respect our diversified inheritance.

However 50 years on, the 2007/2008 post election violence happened which was purely based on ethnic diversity.This is what motivated me to carry out the study to find out students' perception and attitude towards promotion of cohesion in Kenya. I used Religious Education, because as a subject, it is naturally geared towards human brotherhood - inspite of differences.

The study involved 25 Secondary Schools in Nairobi and a sample of 550 students. Nairobi was chosen for its cosmopolitan nature where different ethnic groups have lived together for years but, nevertheless, Nairobi was affected by the violence. The main tool of the study was a questionnaire for the students, but I also interviewed a few teachers and Education Officers.

These are some of the findings:  Students' age and the type of school they attended influenced their perception and attitude towards people of other ethnic groups. For example, it was found that the younger the student was, the more positive they were towards relating to other groups. Students attending National Schools were also more positive. It was also found out that the parents' level of education was significant. The higher the educational level of the parents, the more positive students were. Other variables that were tested, such as gender and parents' occupation, did not have any significant influence".