Globales Lernen – Your Chance to change People’s Perception of Africa and Africans

After I wrote the article on earning a living during your studies (Mkenya Ujerumani: How to earn a living during your studies), I mentioned Globales Lernen in passing and I thought I should have an article to explain what Globales Lernen is about.

Globales Lernen is a project run by the Bundesministerium für Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit (BMZ) which has different branches running the project in different states, in NRW it’s Eine-Welt-Netz. The goal of this program is to expose the German public to other cultures.

For the longest time this project has had to rely on Germans who have lived in other countries to teach about cultures in those countries. As a Kenyan I bet you would understand the problem with such a scenario. How can someone who lived in Runda, spent 90% of their time at Village Market and whose kids studied at the German school or even at the top private schools in Kenya, teach others about Kenyans and their culture and traditions? But at the same time who do you expect to share with them the “real” deal if no Kenyans are taking part in this program?
I would encourage anyone out there who would be interested to take time and participate, get in touch with the coordinator in your State and plan to moderator a session to teach about the Kenyan way of life. Depending on the participants’ age, you can teach them songs, cook something Kenyan, bring along Kenyan jewellery etc, and teach them about Kenyans.

You know as Kenyans we are a peculiar lot, we even have a book named after our bad habits, The Peculiar Kenyan by Sunny Bindra.

If you can, please take part in this and help change the perception of who we are as Kenyans. The movies being shown about Kenya and Kenyans aren’t the best source of info nor the best representation of us.

This is not only open to students but also other individuals, as long as you can communicate. You earn a small amount for each session, so it’s something worth looking into. There are people who do it as a fulltime job .

If you’re interested or you need help in planning what to teach in a class, here is a list of sources of info:  Unterrichtmaterial zu Afrika.