Community Outreach | Clearly Meets the Future Grads of Kisaruni Secondary School in Kenya

For our ThrowBackThursday today we give thanks to our Clearly teammates Ryan and Geri for sharing their memories of meeting the amazing young girls at Free the Children‘s Kisaruni Secondary School in Kenya. These intelligent and poised young women all have bright futures ahead! For our part, the Clearly Team wanted to ensure these girls had every opportunity to also literally see their full potential by bringing awareness and access to vision health and vision correction. We hope you enjoy reading Ryan and Geri’s story below!

Kisaruni means “a peaceful place” in both Maasai and Kipsigis languages. Kisaruni focuses on community and empowering curriculum that provides girls with opportunities to excel. These girls strive to build on their cultural values, to be leaders in their communities, to value diversity and encourage active learning.

We had the chance to go to Kisaruni school around mid-afternoon on our 5^th day in Kenya. The weather turned from sunny with a patch of clouds to gray and dark. About a minute after the girls began their tour with us, thunder, lightning, and heavy rain moved in. We could hardly hear their voices, but the girls were the picture of professionalism and we’re determined to introduce us to their school.  Each student told us a little bit about each of their classes, from chemistry and computer works to reading all kinds of books.  I was amazed at the pride and respect these students had for their school. These girls inspired us with their dedication to learning and their focus on the future.

While doing vision screening in their cafeteria, we came across one of the girls who wasn’t able to read the test sheet on the wall, and none of the glasses we tried on her were helping her vision at all. With Claudia, our Head Optician, and one of the teacher’s help, we determined that she had dyslexia and was having a hard time interpreting the vision screening test as a result. At that point, we were able to help refer her and schedule her for an eye exam at the Kishon Health Clinic to determine the proper correction she needed for her vision.

As we reflect on our experience in Kenya, we appreciate that we didn’t always have the answer, but by bringing awareness to vision health and vision correction we have been successful starting the conversation and next steps to ensure that vision health is addressed. We are so grateful to have met these girls and to have been able to help prioritize their vision needs. We were blown away by their amazing potential and hopefully we left them seeing their full potential as well.  

Have questions about Change the View or want to know more about Clearly’s impact in Kenya? Please email info@changetheview.org for more information.