Scholars Views
- Pestalozzi Children's Centre, Kasisi by Tasila Nyangu, student
- Aggrey Kwiliko writes about the International Baccalaureate sponsored from Pestalozzi Village
- Chilufya Mwamba writes about the International Baccalaureate sponsored from Pestalozzi Village
- Note from A PCVT Alumnus from Nigeria
- Perspectives of Two Thai Alumni of Pestalozzi Village
- Letter From Vietnam - Story from PCVT alumnus
Pestalozzi Children's Centre, Kasisi by Tasila Nyangu, student
My name is Tasila Nyangu. I am a girl of 15 years and have just finished Grade 8. I am from Mwzavi village in the Luangwa district of Zambia. I come from a family of five and I am the first born.
I was selected to come to the Pestalozzi Children's Centre in Kasisi when I was in Grade 6 and have been here now for 2 years. I was very happy when I was selected. When I was at home I never imagined that I would find myself here in Kasisi which is such a nice place. From the first moment I came here I have been very happy because of all the new things I am learning and because of our Guardians who are such nice people and very helpful and are very important to our lives.
Our Centre has 8 dorms and a courtyard in the middle. We have vegetable gardens and a field for our crops. We have many different kinds of beautiful flowers. We have trees which bear many different fruits such as mangoes, bananas, paw-paws and lemons. We usually sweep our place to keep it very clean, and help with the cooking and wash our own clothes.
I have a lot of friends here from many different provinces. My best friend is called Tayana. My favourite sport is netball. I like going to Church, especially on Sunday.
I spend most of my time studying. My favourite subjects are environmental science, English, civics, history and religious education. I have been going to the local Basic School with the other girls, but this year my school report was very good and I had very high marks in my exams. I have been accepted by Kasisi Girls Secondary School, which is a boarding school here in the village and I started one month ago. I have a lot of catching up to do and have been copying notes from other girls to prepare for starting Grade 9.
Here at the Pestalozzi Centre there are many different kinds of things that we do, such as: sewing both by hand and with a machine, knitting, plaiting hair, pounding maize, cooking, weeding and watering the garden. In the garden we have learned how to plant carrots, tomatoes, okra, garlic and onion, and how to make our soil healthy. We are learning about nutrition and the importance of eating many different things. We have started a tree nursery to grow our own firewood. In our fields we grow crops like maize, beans, groundnuts, pumpkins and sweet potatoes.
I am very thankful to Pestalozzi which has given me this opportunity to be here. I feel like I have to work extra hard both at school and in skills training. I am very grateful to all the staff here at the Centre who have been caring for me since I came here. I am also grateful to the workers who helped build the Centre. I always thank God for my opportunity and ask Him to help me so that I may finish my education and start helping my family and other people in the way that Pestalozzi is helping me.
Aggrey Kwiliko writes
Aggrey Kwiliko is an ex-Pestalozzi student from Zambia now sponsored in the International Baccalaureate programme administered from Pestalozzi Village, UK
Nothing has changed since I was here nine years ago. The buildings and the surrounding areas are still the places I remember them to be. However a whole new atmosphere surrounds Pestalozzi with the new International Baccalaureate Diploma course introduced in 1997.
Students arrive at the Pestalozzi Village after completing their ordinary level education in their countries. Though Pestalozzi is now a village for matured and developed students, education is still regarded as the fundamental tool that it was in the past. The International Baccalaureate at Hastings College is a science-oriented course. It's not surprising that most of the students want to pursue careers in medicine or engineering. I'm one of the few exceptions, as I want to go on and study economics.
The diploma course runs for two years at Hastings College of Arts and Technology. Throughout the two years, six subjects are studied, three at standard level and three at higher level. Students choose from English Literature, Spanish, French, Business and Management, History, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Art and Computer Studies.
However, there is what is called Creativity Action Service (CAS). This is participation in different extra-curricular activities and 150 hours over the two years are spent on this. Students have a chance to go into different schools, old people's homes, blind centres and numerous other places. I personally feel this is important as far as developing awareness of the world is concerned.
Another segment of the course is Theory of Knowledge (TOK). A subject I never thought existed. Theory of Knowledge challenges the basis of knowledge; develops students so that they think critically and do not believe things for the sake of believing. Lastly you have an essay to write on what interests you, consisting of 4,000 words to write up, based on your own research.
Pestalozzi Village is a very unique, ideal and secure environment. You learn a lot from different people, their cultures and beliefs and respect them for who they are. So, despite the course being hard, there is nothing as fulfilling as the relationship you have with people you never imagined you would ever meet.
Chilufya Mwamba writes
Chilufya Mwamba is an ex-Pestalozzi student from Zambia now sponsored in the International Baccalaureate programme administered from Pestalozzi Village, UK
In this world we live in, it is very difficult to learn things to the fullest if you do not experience them.
I remember that years back my parents, teachers and friends used to tell me about the different continents of the world and about people with a variety of cultures and traditions. I used to think Africa was the only continent, which had people who had the heart for others because of the stories I had heard and learnt about the slave trade.
This thinking diminished slowly but surely. I soon realised from the white people I saw in my country that they were kind and well behaved and I watched a lot of films about different people of the world but I still had the desire to see and experience more.
My desire was fulfilled when I was sponsored by Pestalozzi Children's Village Trust (PCVT) to go to Hastings College of Art and Technology which is in East Sussex in England. This has been a real experience indeed. I have met a lot of people at college from different countries like Jamaica, China, North Africa and France, just to mention a few. And of course, there are the English themselves, who I personally can say, are kind and very polite. But one thing I am not sure of is if their politeness and kindness is genuine at times, or if it is just that they want to maintain a good name about their 'Great Britain'. That I don't know!
At the college the course is very challenging and needs people who are principled and focussed on their education. The course involves a lot of practical things like CAS (Creativity, Action and Service) projects, which have taught me a lot of things like being active, confident and able to give a hand to people in need, because I was the type of person who always waited for others to do such things.
The other most important thing that I have learnt from these experiences is to interact with different types of people and their cultures, by living at Pestalozzi International Children's Village, which encourages the education of 'the Head, the Heart, and the Hands'. It is so amazing how I have come to feel so much at home and have a lot of fun with different kinds of people like Indians, Tibetans, Nepalese, Africans and British. It is so interesting and valuable to live among different cultures, traditions and religious beliefs. In addition to that, you learn a lot of things and become proud and at the same time humbled.
I have learnt not to be prejudiced about people from what I hear, but I try to get to know and understand people by their origin; this has helped me a lot to maintain my happy social and academic life abroad.
Last, but by no means the least, I thank the Pestalozzi staff for always being there when I need them and the people who have continued to fund the organisation despite the well known fact that money is hard to come by nowadays.
Note from Nigeria by Waziri Haruna Ahmedu, Nigeria
Waziri Haruna Ahmedu was a member of the Nigerian group of Pestalozzi Village students. He was born in Nigeria in 1960 and came to the Pestalozzi Village in 1973. He studied at Claverham and Bexhill Colleges while at the Village and went on to do an OND in Agricultural Engineering at Ryecotewood College in Oxfordshire.
After leaving England and Pestalozzi in the autumn of 1980, he walked 800km from Malam-Fatori (Borno) to Gurin (Adamawa), both in Nigeria, over a period of 6 weeks with a friend in 1980, after which a book titled The Beach of Morning: A Walk in West Africa, was written by the friend on the walk, Stephen Pern.
Waziri's wife's name is Suwaiba and they have two daughters, Fatima-Zahra who is almost three, and Mariam, who is one and a half.
Waziri continued his studies in Nigeria, doing a B.Eng. in Agricultural Engineering at Nigeria's famous Ahmadu Bello University, and has worked in that field since, now working as a Consulting Agricultural Engineer. At the moment though he is back in the UK doing a year long MSc. in Agribusiness Management at Imperial College, Wye in Kent.
Perspectives of Two Thai Alumni of Pestalozzi Village
Prommaes Bunekoon is a senior manager at an international agribusiness near Hua Hin, Thailand. He is close to his family and enjoys relationships formed years ago at school in the UK.
Usanee Janngeon has been working for Father Joe Maier at the Human Development Centre, Bangkok, for eight years, managing a variety of projects for the Slum Kindergarten Improvement Program (SKIP). Married with two young children, she enjoys working near her home and appreciates the freedom given her by Father Joe in her day-to-day work.
Prommaes and Usanee. s lives are very different now, but they have had a common experience: studying at the Pestalozzi Children. s Village in the UK from the age of ten. Here are some of their recollections and impressions of life in the Village.
Leaving Home
Prommaes's decision to go to the Village was easy. "Being a boy, I was adventurous. I came back from school one day, and [the Pestalozzi interviewers] had come to see my sister. But she didn. t want to go, so they asked me and I said yes!" Prommaes was part of one of the earliest groups of Thai students to attend the Village. His eleven other classmates were from Bangkok, Nonthanburi and Thonburi, and he met them several times in a study program, led by a monk, designed to teach these young children some English and to acquaint them with one another.
The actualization of Usanee. s departure was more deliberated. Her aunt, a teacher, knew of the program and approached Usanee. s mother. "At first my mother declined," she recalls, "but later she decided that this was a very good opportunity for me." Almost three years elapsed between the initial proposal and Usanee finding herself alongside her three classmates (smaller groups were being brought to the UK more regularly by this time, six year after Prommaes. s 1969 departure) at the airport. How did she feel about leaving? "It didn. t hit me until I arrived in the UK and the housemothers met us with coats and warm clothes. It was so cold!" She too had met with her classmates before the departure, "to learn about the culture, the weather, and some English." Still, the shock of arriving in a new place and the homesickness are easily recalled.
Arriving At The Village
The Village was just that . a collection of houses for the hundred Indian, Nepalese, Thai and Vietnamese Pestalozzi students near a local school. The school had an additional four hundred or so local students. "At first there was worry about a lot of foreign students coming in and lowering the standards [of the curriculum] . but it was the reverse," says Prommaes, attributing the strong performance partly to some of the "brainy" Indian and Thai students, and partly to the fact that the Pestalozzi students. lives were about getting a good education.
The influence of the housemothers is noteworthy. To Prommaes they were surrogate mothers, as well as providing motivation and guidance in matters of education. "They were tough," Usanee recalls. Not unkind, but disciplinarians, creating a much stricter environment than she would have experienced at home. She credits the housemothers in particular, and the Pestalozzi experience in general, for teaching her that hard work is required to achieve your goals. "At the Villae, we were given pocket money, but anything we wanted . like a TV . we had to work at, plan for. But when I left the Village [to study nursing], that was when the really hard work started." Her success at university was an outgrowth of the life lessons of the Village.
Life After The Village
Prommaes spent twelve years in the UK, going through primary and secondary schooling before leaving the Village to earn an undergraduate university agricultural engineering degree. Having earned a nursing degree, Usanee worked for two years in her field before returning to Bangkok. Both found their return difficult in some ways. For Prommaes, "Workwise and professionally, it was OK, but family expectations were sometimes too much," since the tendency was to assume that one who had earned a degree overseas would quickly have material wealth and power to show for it . "driving a Mercedes and quickly becoming a manager." Prommaes believes the Pestalozzi philosophy and the Thai culture . to be a good person and to support those who have helped you . are similar and compatible. "The pressure is less now because I bought a piece of land and a house for my mother, but the responsibility towards family is still ongoing."
Usanee found she had to readjust to many aspects of life in Bangkok, including family, social and professional. In the Village, the Thai culture and language, and each of the other Asian cultures, were kept fresh and familiar through Thai language lessons and the influence of the housemothers; the house was like a "mini Thailand". However, as was the norm, her first visit home was five years after her departure. Although as an adult she appreciates the decision her mother made, as a fifteen-year-old she felt alienated at having been sent abroad for so long.
Usanee. s goal upon her return home, even with a nursing degree, was simply "to find any job that used my English skills. I did not know what to expect with the job situation." As a result of her difficult reintegration, Usanee believes strongly that the in-country education system (supported through the Pestalozzi Overseas Children. s Trust (POCT)) is the right way to go. "At the end of the day, this is our home. And the quality of the education is up to scratch now. There are excellent universities in Bangkok." Whereas Prommaes sees the UK lifestyle as a big plus in terms of the higher standard of nutrition and the focus on education rather than family matters, Usanee believes the advantages of the UK program do not justify bringing young children so far from their families, homes, friends, when especially now that educational funding is available in-country.
Although neither stays in close touch with the Village now . Usanee still sends Christmas cards to some staff members . both have trouble picturing what their life might otherwise have been, but don. t believe a university degree would figure in the picture.
"The Village was my second home," says Prommaes. "It was a very positive experience. I have a network of eleven classmates who in some ways I am closer to than even my own family." "I cannot thank the Pestalozzi foundation enough," Usanee says simply.
Thai Alumni's Circle of Success
Today, over two dozen Pestalozzi alumni are supporting fifty children in Thailand towards an education they might otherwise not complete; and POCT supports another fifty. In their own ways, Prommaes and Usanee . and dozens of their fellow alumni . are completing the Circle of Success, helping others to return the favor of having been helped themselves.
Thanks
Heartfelt thanks to Pestalozzi Alumni Prommaes Bunekoon, Janwipa Chongnoncee, Usanee Janngeon and Chaiyan Tippayosot for taking time out of their very busy lives to collaborate on this article.
Letter From Vietnam - Story from PCVT alumnus
Thong Van Pham, a Pestalozzi Village graduate and the Treasurer of the Vietnamese Pestalozzi Foundation has written the following account of his life experience:
I was a member of the Vietnamese group that arrived at Pestalozzi Village in the summer of 1971, having spent the first ten years of my life in war torn Vietnam.
Upon arriving at Pestalozzi, I remember being greeted by many people. At first I thought they were Vietnamese because of their appearance, dark hair etc. Although I was shy, I did feel at ease with them, until they started to talk in this strange language which I did not understand and, over the next few days I began to realise this strange language was 'English'.
Whilst at Claverham Community College I had the saddest news of my life, South Vietnam that I had always known and where my family still lived had lost the war. It was then I realised I might never be able to return to Vietnam, as I was supposed to after my education.
After my education, knowing that I would not be returning to Vietnam and having had no news from my family for seven years, I was determined that I would visit Vietnam again to be with my family. But there was one small problem - 'money' and a new passport.
The passport was the easy part, being classified as stateless, I was granted British citizenship in 1984 and embarked upon my working life.
Vietnam during this time was still in turmoil; her border was closed to most countries and visitors alike. My desire to see my family grew stronger until 1992 when my chance finally arrived. I visited Vietnam for the first time since 1971. It was a very emotional moment seeing my mother with a plaque with my name at the airport; also there were my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews all welcoming me home.
I stayed in Vietnam for four weeks and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Since then I have made the trip every two years.
In 1997, a few members of the Vietnamese group started the Vietnamese Pestalozzi Foundation with the help of the Pestalozzi Overseas Trust. We are at present sponsoring four students in Vietnam. Having just returned from Vietnam, I have pleasure in reporting that all the students are studying very well and one has done especially well - he has gained a transfer into one of the best schools in Ho Chi Minh City.
Thanks, all for now. All the best and regards to all Ex-Pests.