One Tough History Lesson

On February 8, 2008, I read an article in the Star Ledger, “Teens Try to Save School in Kenya”. Four years ago a group of students in Red Bank Catholic High School saw pictures of improvised children in Kenya. They gathered and did something! Their fund raising totaling over $10,000 and went to the Maryknoll mission in Kenya. The students hoped their donations would help operate a nursery school in the crowded slum of Kibera. The three to five year old children then would have a place to learn, run and play. They would be fed a hot daily lunch; this would fend off disease and blindness. The Red Bank students wanted to give these small children a chance at a future. Initially all e-mails back to the Red Bank students’ were uplifting.

Last month, the Red Bank students learned a harsh lesson. As Kenya exploded in political and ethnic violence following elections, the fate of their adopted school was in question. The last e-mail from the Maryknoll missionary described the riots and their causalities, stories of mass graves, rape of women and children and the burning of families in their homes, people displace and worldly good destroyed, except for what people could carry on their backs, limbs severed and individuals shot with poisoned arrows. The atrocities go on and on. Survivors are even afraid to venture out of their homes. Finally the students received word about the fate of their school from an AP reporter, the entire neighbor surrounding the nursery went up in flames but the nursery, miraculous survived but remains closed. Due the conditions surrounding it, it is questionable if there will be students in the destroyed neighborhoods to attend.

The students in Red Bank High School learned about political unrest in a real way. They became personally involved with children and their needs. They addressed those needs with hard work (fund raising for relief efforts). They learned that instability in a nation effects many people, including innocent children.