Summary of project status and achievements:
English classes continued this month. The beginning English class was so large that the teacher, Solomon Kasongo, split it into a morning and an afternoon class. There are now three English classes: morning beginning, afternoon beginning and advanced. Each meets three times a week. Solomon has been informed about the monthly demographic information needed on each student, so the indicators and statistics will reflect these next month. Solomon also has a notebook containing his curriculum, which he created himself.
Music classes had their advanced graduation on August 9, culminating six months of instruction. Keyboard graduated 9 students and guitar graduated 11 students. This actually only represents 16 students because some students graduated from both keyboard and guitar. Additionally, 2 of the 16 were the guitar and keyboard teachers because each took the other’s class. Teachers Donat Kankaji and Clement Nduba organized a graduation ceremony and recital. Biscuits and groundnuts were served to the students.
Registration for a new round of guitar classes was held on August 23. Classes began on August 26 with 15 students, including one Zambian who lives outside the camp.
Keyboard class was suspended due to a lack of batteries for the keyboard. The PM has requested a AA battery charger and rechargeable batteries to be sent from the United States. In anticipation of its receipt, keyboard registration was held on August 30. Twenty students registered, and classes will begin on September 6 with music theory.
Future Activities and Projections:
In the next month, the PM will work with Solomon to update the pre and post knowledge tests and to create an English class evaluation. The PM will also work with Donat and Clement to create a post class evaluation for the music classes.
The PMs feel that Solomon could be utilized more. His English classes are extremely popular and seem to be very effective. He has created his own curriculum that we think could be used throughout Meheba to standardize FORGE English classes. Perhaps other FORGE English teachers could even be trained by Solomon. At this point, these are just ideas, but Solomon is an employee in whom we see great potential.
Indicators and statistics:
*English class statistics are unavailable at this time. They will be included in next month’s report.
Substantial problems or issues:
As mentioned above, the keyboard has some power issues. This can hopefully be resolved by using rechargeable batteries.
Additionally, the music classes seem to be serving the same population again and again. The keyboard class especially often feels more like a club than a class. To help reach out to a wider group of people, the guitar teacher and the PM have talked about moving the guitar class to Block F once this current session ends. This is partly in response to popular demand in that block.