Reflection on my time at Freedom Worldwide Colleges – Africa

I’m just a little late to my reflection however I’ve now performed a good quantity of reflecting. My time in Kenya was a lot greater than I might have hoped for. I labored extraordinarily exhausting, providing as a lot assist as attainable. I additionally took on new challenges I beforehand would have shied away from, and made actually good associates. 

For work, I used to be given a wide range of roles. I taught artwork and images, labored on signage and promoting on social media, and did quite a lot of images for the varsity.

Instructing

Throughout my keep, I taught artwork and images to completely different age teams. I arrange a GoFundMe earlier than I left the UK (https://gofund.me/fc0286b9) so I might purchase a choice of DSLR cameras and tools with the intention of donating them to the varsity. It ended up being a very good concept. As a toddler, I’d have been actually excited to make use of correct ‘skilled’ cameras and as I’ve some expertise with images it appeared like an excellent alternative. The scholars actually liked it. I wrote concerning the first few images classes in my earlier put up so I cannot go into element now however I used to be just about thrown within the deep finish upon arrival and taught 8-9 courses on my first day. After that, I labored with the scholars on and off. Sadly, the plan was that when exams had completed, I’d take a number of courses for artwork and images (in my Fifth-Sixth weeks) however on account of some critical protests that had been going down in Kenya whereas I used to be there, the varsity was shut instantly after exams. This was barely gutting as I had a number of courses deliberate and I knew the scholars had been fairly disenchanted too. Fortunately, I knew a number of the scholars had developed the fundamental abilities they wanted to make use of the cameras and they also have been capable of proceed utilizing them. Kids as younger as 4 received their palms on Nikon D50s and D70s which was a number of enjoyable. They took nice images and had been a complete pleasure to show and to be round. 

On the ultimate day I arrange a studio with Kitenge material. The youngsters put on dashike (a mode of Kitenge) on Fridays so I made positive to get some in order that their clothes would match up with the supplies. This concept was impressed by Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu who was invited to the varsity however sadly was unable to make it. 

Right here is an instance of her work:

A number of of the images (some by college students and a few by me):

On the finish, we had a number of material and thought it could be nice to embellish the school rooms with one thing just like the bunting under. We discovered a stitching machine, and I made a number of strings of bunting. I didn’t have time to complete this job as my time was coming to an finish. All the material was left behind so hopefully another person had an opportunity to complete.

Promoting and social media:

Throughout my time there, Kids In Freedom Faculty (CIFS) was present process a strategy of rebranding to change into Freedom Worldwide Colleges – Africa (FISA), taking up the Worldwide Baccalaureate Curriculum (IB). It was actually busy, and there have been quite a lot of modifications going down that had been new to employees, mother and father, and college students. There have been issues concerning the variety of kids that may return as soon as the modifications had been made, as IB is one thing new and, due to this fact, one thing many mother and father had been cautious about. The administrators of the varsity, Utheri and Oku Kanayo, selected the IB curriculum because it embodies many components attribute of their ethos. 

There have been many alternatives for me to assist throughout this era as there was an enormous quantity of labor to be performed in preparation for the following time period. I used to be requested to design billboards which I fortunately accepted suspecting they’d be small-ish highway indicators. It turned out that they had been 12*10 metre billboards which might be positioned in several Kenyan cities, with three ending up within the capital, Nairobi. 

There have been a couple of challenges right here:

• Time limitations: I used to be advised they needed these performed “yesterday”. Given this, I had a reasonably brief period of time to finish these so I in the end did what I might within the time I had. 
• Strain and accountability: These billboards price the varsity some huge cash. Having them as my accountability after I knew they had been an enormous funding for the varsity was just a little nerve-wracking. 
• Technical issues: Whereas I used to be away I discovered my laptop computer was taking part in up actually badly. Loading time was excessively lengthy–partially due to the age of my laptop computer and partially as a result of it couldn’t deal with the large doc sizes I used to be working with. 
• New software program: I’ve some familiarity with Photoshop and Procreate, however these purposes can’t be used for paperwork of the dimensions I used to be engaged on. I had to make use of Adobe Illustrator which I had by no means used earlier than. 
• Assembly the varsity’s necessities: One of many extra complicated challenges was aligning my designs with the varsity’s ideology and the director’s particular wants. Initially, I wasn’t given detailed specs. After presenting a couple of ideas to the varsity’s management group, I obtained suggestions and realized the size and essential inclusions for the ultimate designs. We labored from my preliminary concepts, implementing the requested modifications. This was a helpful expertise the place I learnt to steadiness private creativity with shopper wants. I additionally realized when to supply ideas and when to rein in my concepts. 

        Earlier invoiceboard:                                             New fundamental concept:

          Chosen designs:

         Billboards:

After finishing these early on in my journey (within the 2nd week) I then was requested to finish related duties. I redesigned the varsity gate, all of the highway indicators, and the varsity buses.

Faculty gate: