Whatcom County Education Consultants
to Participate in Workshop Addressing Education Reform in Kenya
Bombings and travel
warnings will not stop Jeana King and Dr. Debra Akre from their goal of
educating a nation out of poverty.
May 22, 2014
TEMBO
TRADING EDCUATION PROJECT
BELLINGHAM, WA.
Two local Education Consultants, Jeana King and Dr. Debra Akre
from Bellingham, Washington – the founders of the Tembo Trading Education
Project - are leaving for Kenya on May 26th to participate in an
important workshop involving members of parliament, members of the Kenyan
Ministry of Education, and many local school administrators focused on the
future education strategy in Kenya.
For the past ten years the women have been working hands-on in
Kenya to implement their model of education that focuses on teaching young
people to do for themselves and not wait for others to determine their future. Their
ultimate goal is to educate the nation out of poverty and thus work themselves
out of job. Their work has produced results the current education system can
only dream of achieving, and is becoming well known across Kenya. As a result,
they are the only non-Kenyans attending the meeting of 49 principals and
government officials whose purpose is to discuss local education challenges and
strategies that will enable Kenya to achieve its future goal of becoming an
industrialized middle-class nation by 2030.
“We realize that this could be a difficult time to make another
trip to Kenya in light of the violence perpetrated by el Sahbab but we believe
that this is a unique opportunity to influence the direction that much of
Kenyan education will take in the future, and will affect the ability of an
entire generation of deprived youth to pull themselves out of poverty and to
improve their lives on their own. This is one of the first sessions like this
in some time in Kenya, and the opportunity to share their tested model of
education is very humbling” said Jeana King.
The work done by Akre and King has been recognized by Rotary
International by receiving the Paul Harris Fellows Award and have a book (Beneath
the Baobab Tree by Kris Stevenson) published about their extraordinary work to
end poverty.
Contact information:
Debra Akre, PhD Jeana King
360.303.2259/debra@tembotrading.org 360.319.5891/jeana@tembotrading.org
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