Colette Cotton's Kenyan Blog – written daily by Smarty Bear, St Mary's CE Primary School's Travelling Bear

Exchanging soft toys between twinned schools is a well established method of engaging young pupils in the global dimension.

Colette Cotton, ICT and International Co-ordinator at St Mary's CE School in Folkestone, has gone one step further.

She is visiting one of her school's partner schools in Kenya to teach about internet safety and set up a weather station.

And she has taken Smarty, their e-twinning teddy bear and Naiserian, the toy Kenyan White Rhino with her. 

Together, they are keeping a travel blog which you can follow below.  

Long flight to Nairobi

Sun 17th Feb:
Naiserian the Rhino and I enjoyed the early morning frosty drive to Heathrow Airport.

We had a good window seat on the flight… we’ve been busy looking out of the window, watching the land below look like a toy town.

Naiserian couldn’t wait to show me his home continent of Africa.

Kenyan time (18.30 GMT) saw us land at Nairobi, what a long flight that was… Wait for more news tomorrow!

18th February
First full day in Africa…

We woke up to the sound of birds and chirping insects and after breakfast we said ‘Jambo’ (hello) to the security guard and drove along the bumpy roads to Peponi School. 

We passed homes that were just made out of corrugated iron and pieces of old wood…  But wherever you looked there were people, 100’s of them just walking along the red dusty roads.

Naiserian was so excited to be returning to Peponi and his old classroom. 

Some Year 2’s showed us all around the school and used Mrs C’s camera to take loads of photos.

I showed Waruguru in Year 2 how to set up the equipment for our Weather station.  It was 25c at 8.30am and 30c at lunch.

The dining room was outdoors and we sat down for lunch together… 350 + teachers.

I’ve tried mangoes, pawpaws, pineapple and water melon.  They were scrummy!

Tuesday 19th Feb
Refugee camp

We decided to visit 'Karura Camp' in Runda for displaced people after the recent fighting in Kenya. Naiserian and I held on tightly as we drove along the red bumpy track to the camp.

We said 'Jambo, Habari' (hello, how are you?) and explained that some schools in the UK and Peponi had been raising money for the camps and we wanted to know what the people in the camp needed most.

They told us that this was a small camp of only 250 people with 91 children and were quite happy to show us around whilst Mrs C, as usual, took loads of photos.

The little children loved the camera and seemed to come from everywhere.

They had been given one tent for each family and also charcoal for their fires and flour to cook ‘Uguli and Skuma Wiki’ (Porridge and Kale) their meal for the day. They were also making ‘Chai’ (tea) to drink.

£19 to rebuild their lives

It was really sad seeing people living like this, but the camp was clean and there was medical care and enough basic food.

Once families feel safe to leave the camp they will be given £19 to help them rebuild their homes and lives.

As we left the camp, the children all waved goodbye - but we did feel that we were very privileged and have so much.  We will be returning with some provisions later in the week.

Time to close at the end of a day, the sunset each evening brings hope of a new day…

Bye

Smarty

How did they do that ?

The link between St Mary's CE Primary School and Peponi House Prepatory School in Nairobi is facilitated by Intuitive Media.

Intutive Media's SuperClubsPLUS is a Safe Social Learning Network for children and teachers with over 120,000 members. It provides an online space to help develop Inter-cultural understanding. Schools can use the One World Zone sponsored by DFID for free.  Email superclubsplus@intuitivemedia.com (for primary schools), goldstarcafe@intuitivemedia.com (for secondary schools) or call freephone 0800 169 1024.

If you are interested in twinning your school, World Class will put you in touch with organisations which facilitate school twinning. Find out more and join World Class in our Find A Twin section.

Read more about St Mary's e-Bear project.

Read about how the Kenyan unrest is affecting children on the BBC News website.