Increasing forest cover through play in Nairobi

Schools have been on holiday for the last four weeks as per the government of Kenya school calendar and we have been having series of meetings amongst ourselves to prepare for the last term of the year.

As the schools reopen, I am looking forward to meet with a boy who has become one of my best friend in Mukuru, I will call him Solomon for the sake of protecting his identity. When I visited his school for the first time, Solomon was not friendly to his class mate, some of his class mates were actually making fun of him, he never used to come to our sessions, he used to remain outside the classroom isolated.

I came to know about Solomon’s predicament when I went to remind his teacher about the time the Children should come for the session. I greeted him but he was not receptive as other Children were and that caught my attention, I enquire about him from his class teacher, but the female teacher had no clue about what was wrong with Solomon but she mentioned that his parents are having domestic violence.

The next day I insisted that we go with Solomon to the field and I involved him in the session, he played but he was not that involved, I decided to keep him neat me in the circle so that he would not feel with drawn, According to the teacher, Solomon never used to do anything in class and he was always fearful.

I tagged alomg with Solomon and the story has now changed, Its now four months down line and Solomon has completely transformed, he is laughing to the jokes from his peers, something that never used to happen and he one time did a shout,  a signature tune to finish the session on a high note.

The last time I talked with her teacher about Solom’s progress, she told me that Solomon did not sit for second term exams,that worries me. One of the assignments that I have when the schools will be reopened will be to find out where is my friend; I will definitely visit his home through the class teacher. I will keep you posted about my findings in the next report…Asante sana /Thank you very much for being the strength beneath our wings.