Dr Roselyn’s visit to Menengai High School

Dr Roselyn is the Programme Director for the Allan & Gill Gray Foundation, Kenya. During #AGEC19_KE she took some time to visit one of the participating schools, Menengai High School to present the weekly awards to the Level 2 winners, Nigel Samberino and Job Kipruto.

The awards were presented at the morning school assembly. Hence winners were also celebrated by the Principal, Teachers Champions, Teachers and fellow learners!

Menengai High School is a mixed secondary school for girls and boys. It is located in Nakuru County, Kenya.

Dr Roselyn met the Teacher Champion, Mr Isaac Otenyi, as well as the Principal, Mr Gatia, who were both thrilled about MHS being one of the public high schools in Kenya participating in #AGEC19_KE, plus having over 60 learners registered at their school, with more than half of whom were actively engaged.

The Principal commented on the challenge saying, “It is interesting to the students. It is making students think and come up with innovative ideas and encouraging them to do research. Welcome next year and run this again in our school!”

Dr Roselyn’s discussion points in the MHS morning assembly.

Addressing all the learners, she encouraged them:

  1. To make at least one strategic decision every day – the human mind makes a certain number of decisions daily. Most people spend it making many repeatable decisions such as what to wear. “Decision fatigue” can result from too much information or too many choices. Some top entrepreneurs have a set style of dressing; like a school uniform. Why? This provides them with more space for creative decision making. So cherish your school uniform, wear it correctly and proudly! It frees you with more space for strategic decision making.
  2. To recognize that being an entrepreneur is cool! As an Entrepreneur you see things and dream about things that other people don’t see, you collaborate with others, take risks and solve problems. You champion the New Way of Thinking! And in future, you will employ self and others. Therefore, anyone who wants to be employed, start looking around your school, identify who wants to be an entrepreneur – that may be your future employer – so prepare your CV for them!

Narrowing it down to addressing the learners who were bold enough to participate in #AGEC19_KE, she encouraged them:

  1. To aim big; aim high! Continue actively engaging in the challenge. Aim to be a weekly winner. Aim to be one of the top winners in Kenya so that you can travel to Nairobi and meet the team, as well as key dignitaries, on 3rd August at the Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropy National Awards Ceremony!! And furthermore, aim to be number one – the top winner in Kenya – who will travel to the Silicon Valley for a 10-day Innovation Tour!!!

After the assembly, a special session was held with all girls and boys of Menengai High School who were participating in the challenge along with their Teacher Champions, Mr Isaac Amutabi Otenyi and Ms Maureen Otunga.

The discussion was held in the computer lab. Learners shared their experiences of how they have set specific times for each one to get online to the AGEC platform as the school does not have many working computers, nor strong internet. The roster runs late at night to accommodate all. They reflected that engaging in the entrepreneurship challenge was good for them as they as they got to think beyond what they had learnt and undertake additional research.

It has fostered collaboration as learners have helped each other with computer manipulations; for instance how to upload photos taken from a cell phone. Learners further shared some challenges they faced. Their feedback was forwarded to the AGEC Technical Team and addressed.

Finally, we took a group photo, where we declared #NewWayOfThinking!