The Clark County Press, Neillsville, Clark Co, WI

September 15, 2010, Front Page

Transcribed by Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Vornholt brings teaching skills to Kenya

Neillsville High School special education instructor Sue Vornholt (second from left) poses with friends she made during a service project in Kenya in July.  Vornholt taught reading lessons to elementary school children.  (Contributed Photo)

By Peter Spicer

Neillsville resident and Neillsville High School special education instructor Sue Vornholt spent a portion of her summer not only teaching in Kenya as part of a service project but building relationships with the residents of that country as well.

Vornholt made a three-week trip to Kenya in July as part of Project Kenya Charity, which builds up communities in Kenya by working with “schools, communities, villages and medical facilities to provide supplies, support and assistance.”

The project’s mission statement is “To support and foster educational development in Kenya, while providing relief and care for those who are underserved.”

The project is funded through donations and is run by volunteers. For each Project Kenya Charity trip, a group with specific talents travels to complete the work needed.

This group included students attending Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), a college that partners with Project Kenya Charity.

Vornholt was part of a group that included 18 teachers or college students who helped the people of Kenya in a variety of ways.  Part of the project was to help build desks for students and construct a new preschool building.

Vornholt taught reading lessons to students in grades one through six.  The number of students in the classes was challenging, said Vornholt, who explained her third-grade class, had 80 students and the fourth-grade class had 96 students.

Vornholt was able to communicate with the students because they learn English at age seven and speak three languages, including Swahili, Luo and English.

Vornholt was one of five teachers in the project group; they met with Kenyan teachers during continuing education work-shops and discussed a variety of classroom issues with them, including reading development and discipline.

The group stayed with Kenyan families. The families grew all the food they ate and had to collect their water from a water source each day.

The family Vornholt stayed with had a dairy cow the family members milked. Dairy products are important for the high number of Kenyans living with HIV, explained Vornholt, who added milk helps the medications be more effective.

The group began the trip on the southwest edge of Kenya in the town of Migori, which has approximately 46,000 residents and is near the Tanzanian border, and then traveled to the east coast town of Mombasa.

Although Vornholt worked with students living many miles from the students she works with in Neillsville, she recognized that “Kids are kids no matter where you are.”

Despite living in a country less affluent than the United States, the children in Kenya have a lot of joy.  “They always seem happy,” said Vornholt.

Although teaching students was rewarding for Vornholt, she enjoyed making friends with those she met.  “A lot of this was building relationships,” explained Vornholt, who learned about the project when she met the “Brydie Hill, the project director, at a conference last school year.

“It’s just always been one of my goals to do a service project,” said Vornholt.

Returning to Kenya is now one of Vornholt’s goals now that she has made friends with the Kenyans she met on this trip. “I’d like to go back,” said Vornholt, who explained she would like to take another trip with Project Kenya Charity.

To donate to the project or for more information, call Vornholt at 715-743-6143 or visit Web site http://project-kenya.org