FAWCO Education Team/AIWC Cologne
Bridging Cultures Workshop Between Cologne and Kisumu
The Bridging Cultures Workshop started with great enthusiasm, and consisted of four successful 45 minute actual Skype sessions. Having great IT specialists present at the IBA (Cologne, Germany) and the Aga Khan School (Kisumu, Kenya) certainly helped. A total of 13 students were involved in the whole workshop. We soon realized that the adage “Less is More” was certainly apt for this workshop, as having fewer participants allowed more time to focus on quality and allowed more time for connection through comments.
Selected bright and enthusiastic 11–14 year old students - four from the Cologne International School (IFK) and nine from the Aga Khan School (Kisumu) - in an informal setting, questioned each other on personal likes and dislikes, school life, family life, hobbies, activities, cultural things and celebrations. Finally, they touched on social and global challenges faced by their country.
As students questioned each other on family life and daily routine in Kenya and Germany, they were pleasantly surprised by the many similarities in their lives and interests. For example, Larissa was thrilled to learn that one of her peers in Kenya plays the violin just as she does thus leading to a small discussion. An interesting and exciting “Show & Tell” session involved the participants bringing local artifacts. Interestingly, Michelle brought a picture by a local artiste in Kisumu depicting young pregnant girls in uniforms, thus highlighting a social challenge faced by girls. She also very aptly added that awareness has helped decrease this problem in the rural areas and encouraged the young girls to give priority to education. Other global challenges faced were also briefly discussed.
Students from both sides are very interested in continuing communicating in the future and have requested an exchange of e-mail and WhatsApp contacts. We have encouraged responsible communication and hope that this continuing learning experience will help transform students’ ability to think, analyze, reflect and evaluate in a way that will impact their future far beyond the classroom.
A great collaboration between all the project facilitators, educators, participants, parents and donors in Kisumu and Cologne has made this bridging of cultures feasible. We are immensely grateful for the support given by them.
by Arandeep D. Degun (AIWC Cologne); edited by Carol-Lyn McKelvey (AIWC Cologne)
Carol-Lyn McKelvey with selected students from IFK Cologne.
"Show & Tell" exchange Kenyan students with their artefacts
