Making Posters In Shimoni

This week working on GVI's community development programme has been great. Normally GVI works in Mkwiro village on Wasini island where the main base is but this week we’ve been based on the mainland at Shimnoi where GVI is beginning to work with community groups and support new projects starting here.

Our work has been mostly concentrated around Shimoni Base Academy and working with the kids there, a little community school, the teachers working for a small and irregular salary, the parents giving what they can to pay for materials, books and school upkeep. We did some really fun environmental education lessons about pollution and littering. The kids were amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed it but to be honest the thing I enjoyed the most about my week on community was making adverts for the upcoming adult lessons.

It sounds strange I know but it’s literally been since primary school that I’ve been given colouring pens, crayons, paper and asked to draw something. It was so nice just sitting round the table outside the cottage on a sunny afternoon, sipping a cup of tea and drawing. Everyone was unusually quiet, concentrating on not colouring over the lines, designing their posters and suddenly two hours had passed! It felt great. I’d stopped worrying about things and completely lost myself in drawing!

We gave the posters to the school principle who has put them up around the village. I got an odd sense of pride when I saw my poster in the corner of a nearby shop. I did that! I contributed to the projects here and I felt that I really was part of the village and had connected with the community. Sounds a bit stupid but seeing my badly coloured poster hanging up there made me feel so good! The adult classes are due to start again next week but I’ll have gone by then as this is my last week. Good luck with the adult classes guys and if you get loads of students it’s all because of my amazing poster!!!!!

Making Posters In Shimoni