Ubuntu in Action: Dr. Kanayo’s School

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Ubuntu in Action: Dr. Kanayo’s School

In this post, we introduce you to Dr. Utheri Kanayo. Dr. Kanayo holds a Ph.D. in Education and is an alumna of Kenyatta University, the University of Nairobi, and Newnham College, University of Cambridge. Her work has included conducting educational research with schools in impoverished neighborhoods in Africa and redesigning curriculum and educational models to shape citizens and innovations based on what Africa needs. Dr. Kanayo believes in a New Africa that will rise as a global leader. While she worked as a researcher at the University of Cambridge for several years, in 2013 she returned to Kenya to focus full time on Children in Freedom School, which she founded with her Ghanaian husband and Engineer, Oku Kanayo. In this work, she mentors children to embrace who they are, own their African heritage, live their purpose, dream big, and use their talents to create and innovate.

Construction of the school started in 2017, and we officially opened in January 2018. Our school is a local private and boarding school which uses the Kenyan curriculum, but follows an Afro-centric model. For example, when looking at a Eurocentric text, we replace the foreign names or activity with a relevant local reference. This allows us to meet the curriculum standards while building African culture, history, and one’s own voice into lessons. We call ourselves by our African names, rather than our English names. We also teach mother tongue languages and allow students to take exams in their native language. We also nurture talents by creating opportunities where children are exposed to various activities such as cooking, programming, dancing, scientific experiments, gymnastics, fashion and design etc. We operate using the Ubuntu ideology, “I am because you are,” meaning that we work collectively rather than individually. This inspires our school’s principles, such as love, consideration, integrity, trustworthiness, accountability, responsibility, respect, and honor.

We have published other informative posts on Invention School’s website which may interest you. To view our entire catalog of over 900 posts go to inventionschool.tech/category/blog/ or use our handy search tool to find topics of interest to you.

Mechanical/Solar Engineer, Prof. Oku Singer

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