Face to face with rural poverty in Africa

Crumbling schoolrooms in Kenya

When I was 17 years old, I went on a Free The Children/Leaders Today trip to Kenya that changed my life. Every morning I taught English in a schoolroom made of crumbling mud and every afternoon I dug trenches and mixed cement to build a more stable, secure schoolhouse for the children in the Maasai Mara, the rural community in Kenya where Free The Children works.

The Maasai children were so excited to learn, that their school had a perfect attendance rate on its first day. (That’s quite a feat for an impoverished community where students frequently miss school or even drop out due to sickness from drinking unclean water, or family obligations, such as herding cattle.) Some of the older boys welcomed us to their school by performing a traditional song and dance for which the Maasai people are world famous; it features a lot of energetic jumping and harmonic sounds.

All month long, we continued learning about each other’s cultures. And even though they jokingly poked fun at me because I was 17, unmarried and didn’t own any cows, they also made me feel like a member of the community and at home in a foreign place.

I was so inspired by the joy and togetherness they showed me that when I attended university I began studying Swahili in preparation for my return to East Africa. During my fall semester this year, I finally made that dream a reality when I traveled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Dar es Salaam is a major city, with a population of four million people—quite a different place from the rustic Maasai Mara where I first fell in love with Africa.

Walking through the streets I met many Maasai people, easily recognizable by their extensively pierced ears and long red blankets. I was surprised to see so many Maasai people, as they are usually nomadic and rural, but a Tanzanian professor explained to me that a thousand people arrive in Dar es Salaam every day.

Many people hope to flee the poverty of the countryside, only to find more poverty in the crowded city, where there are never enough jobs for so many uneducated people. I remember asking a man for directions and showing him a map, only to discover that he could not read.

That experience gave me an intimate understanding of the importance of giving children the opportunity to go to school. Education really is the only solution to end the cycle of poverty plaguing our globe; it enables the next generation to bring much-needed economic development to rural areas, which helps to relieve the overcrowded cities.

My latest trip to East Africa reaffirmed my belief that education is the solution and that through supporting Free the Children’s international projects, our actions can not only affect the small communities that we work with, but have the potential to make a difference in huge surrounding metropolises as well.

Richard Prins
Free The Children Youth Board Member

Free The Children is the largest network of children helping children through education in the world, with more than one million youth involved in our innovative education and development programs in 45 countries. Founded by international child rights activist Craig Kielburger, Free The Children has an established track-record of success, with three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize and partnerships with the United Nations and Oprah’s Angel Network.