KiBo Graduation

Yesterday Michael and I went to see the KiBo graduation ceremony at St. Mary's Goretti Primary School. As Michael explained in more detail before, KiBo is a program to learn technical job skills while also implementing a service project. This KiBo class had raised over 2,000,000 UGX to buy supplies to fix up St. Mary's, and this ceremony was the official presentation of this gift to the students and teachers of St. Mary's. We were there primarily in support of Nicholas and another EAC girl who were a part of this KiBo class, although Michael got called on to give a quick speech about why he was here in Uganda, and what he was doing with Empower African Children. We were all captivated by his moving words. Anyways, it was a very interesting ceremony of recognizing the class's accomplishments, personal stories of the graduates, and thank you's from the St. Mary's kids. It was really cool to see the idea service and service learning spanning across cultures. KiBo seemed toy stress the idea of using the skills learned through the program to better their communities. For most of the graduates this seemed to be a new idea they first learned through KiBo. It was so cool to see that these graduates, no matter what kind of social condition or standard of living they had come from, had learned the true heart of service which calls them to use whatever skills and resources they have, in particular the new skills they have learned through KiBo, to better lives around them. These students were proud of what they accomplished through their KiBo project and were excited about the opportunity to go out from the program and find places where their new skills could really be put to use. I think we could all take a lesson from these kids, and I felt fortunate to get to witness this special occasion firsthand.

- Stokes