Street Girls Learn to Read Using the Scriptures
NAIROBI, Kenya — Street girls here learned to read Swahili at a
day program administered by the Women’s Department of the Kenya Evangelical
Lutheran Church in November last year. Some of the girls were former prostitutes,
some still worked on the streets part-time, while others were in danger
of becoming street girls because of poverty and no money to pay their school
fees.
The girls were taught to read through a method whereby they copied pictures,
key words and syllables derived from key words into their notebooks.
Flash cards
Using flash cards and games, they practised putting syllables together
to make words, and words together to make sentences. Once they were familiar
with all the syllables that exist in the Swahili language, they were able
to read some simple primary school textbooks.
They also began reading some New Reader Scriptures published by the
Bible Societies of Kenya and Tanzania.
This graded series uses simplified text from the Good News Bible and follows
the standard UBS design.
While this project was taking place, a young man named Peter Mwangi,
who has a background in theatre, set about writing a Christmas pageant
for the girls to perform. When he discovered that they had been reading
the New Reader Portion which tells the story of Jesus’ birth, he realised
that the girls would therefore be familiar with the text from the Swahili
Bible, so Peter simply added to that, and incorporated some singing and
dancing.
Film
A television crew from the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation came to the ‘school’
to film the presentation and play, which was performed using the few props
and stage effects that were available. The Angel Gabriel stood on a chair
and waved her arms as she addressed Mary; the Wise Men solemnly brought
gifts of paper flowers and plastic ice cream containers; and two young
goats stood in for the sheep!
Broadcast
The film was shown on Kenya national television during the afternoon of
December 26, 1996. The following day, 17 of the girls attended church and
reported excitedly that they had all managed to gain access to a television
to watch themselves performing in the pageant.
In this way, a group of street girls brought the Christmas message to
people in their homes, from the slums to the luxurious villas of Nairobi.
This page was last updated on Thursday, 17th April
1997.