Published 16 October 2023
Following on from our recent article on the St Bart’s international secondary school partnership link with the Ulafu Secondary School in Kenya, the student committee have now had the opportunity to participate in a zoom meeting with their peers in Kenya. The students all introduced themselves, and Vedha (Year 9) told Mr Kennedy Oloo and his students more about St Bart’s, including the importance of our house system and our uniform.
The committee then had the opportunity to ask Ulafu students a few questions. We learnt from Femix that Ulafu Secondary School has 600 students, that his favourite subject was Geography, that he was most proud of his school’s academic record, that they also had lots of clubs on offer (including Music, Science and Environment) and that he wished the school had a scouting club. We also learnt that Femix loved football and was a Manchester City supporter, which pleased Miss Ostinelli!
The committee also discovered that the Ulafu Secondary School motto was ‘Knowledge is Power’ and we shared with Mr Oloo that our own school motto, Ad Lucem, means ‘Towards the Light’.
Finally, the committee had a chance to understand further which objectives the Ulafu Secondary School would like to work in partnership towards. The laptops that we have already provided have proven to be very valuable and so we discussed providing further IT support for the library and more laptops for the school. We also spoke of long distance students having to walk to and from Ulafu Secondary School, and whether we could support with transport, and about providing tools for the school’s kitchen garden. Finally, Ulafu Secondary School told us about the challenge of gender equality and the need to encourage and facilitate students, particularly girls, staying in education for longer. The committee will now spend some time planning how we might be able to further these objectives and they look forward to another call with our partner school soon.
