Archive: Around Town

For four years Lansing residents have raised money for the Mbaka Oromo school in western Kenya through "Partnership of African and Lansing Schools (PALS).  Mud and dung classrooms were replaced with modern, weather-proof buildings, a library and administration building built, and desks were purchased. A handful of ambassadors for the program have visited the school to see progress made there and meet students and their teachers.  This week Principal William Kabbis came here to observe our schools and meet the Lansing community.

Monday night Kabbis attended the Lansing Board Of Education meeting to tell them about his school and the remarkable transformation they have experienced because of Lansing's generosity.  "It is through the efforts and the sympathy that my school touched the Lansing community and they have contributed enormously to my school," he told the Board.  "I want to thank the Lansing community abundantly for the enormous support they have given to my school.  They have transformed it and transformed the lives of my poor children."


He said he was brought up in one of the poorest families in Kenya, but noted that through hard work and determination he was able to reach his goals.  He has clearly brought that attitude to his school which he reported is number one out of six thousand Kenyan schools in academics and athletics, and number one of 18,000 in music.

Kabbis explained how students sat in dust on mud and dung classroom floors before the new classrooms and desks were provided to the 649 students at the school.  He noted that classrooms typically have more than 60 and sometimes as many as 83 children in a class.  Because of the AIDs epidemic many of his fifth graders have become the heads of their households.


School desks in Kenya cost 1,200 shillings.  During what would become one of many trips to the school Jim Nowack, Lansing resident Caroline Rasmussen's brother, purchased 40 desks for the school.  The desks have 'Donated by Lansing' lettered on each one.

PALS has gone beyond simply being a fund raising effort by facilitating a cultural exchange between the Kenyan and American schools.  The group has provided opportunities for Lansing teachers to teach subjects similar to those taught in Kenya, with students exchanging the results of research projects, or letters.  Pals President Harold van Es noted that the uniforms Mbaka Oromo students wear are even blue and gold, the same as Lansing school colors.


While in Lansing Kabbis has an ambitious schedule.  He arrived in New York City last Saturday, where the van Es family met him and took him for a tour of the city.  They drove to Lansing the next evening.  Since he arrived he has visited Lansing classrooms, attended a Rotary Club lunch, participated in an event at Ithaca's Boynton Middle School, and even attended a Lansing soccer game.


Tonight he is scheduled to meete with a Cornell leadership group, and will meet next week with Lansing School Superintendent Stephen Grimm.  Monday PALS is hosting a Kenya PALS Celebration at Lansing Middle School that is open to the public.  He will be here until he returns to Kenya on October 25th.

Kabbis said that his school motto is, 'Together We Succeed.'  "I believe when Mbaka Oromo and the Lansing Community holds our hands together you take Mbaka Oromo  to the sky," he said.  "What you have done is something that we never believed would be done.  To us it's a big miracle."

----
v4i40