This week, we spoke with Diana Franco, a UTA study-abroad student pursuing a Master of Social Work with a minor in substance abuse, to learn about her experience in our local community during the UTA Kenya study abroad trip in June.

Through this experience, Diana was able to see how students persist with their education, despite facing extremely difficult situations due to lacking medical care, nutrition, sanitation, and educational materials. While interacting with students during tutoring sessions, Diana reported, “I observed very strong resilience from the students. I think overall in the community, the resilience is very high”. According to Diana, the students in Busia County were respectful and careful with their educational materials. Diana experienced the level of care students in Busia County have for educational materials when she left a book in a classroom one day. When Diana returned to the school two days later, a Kenyan student returned the book to her. To her, this signaled that despite the scarcity of resources and lack of access to materials, the student's respect for educational materials compelled them to be sure it was returned.  This experience stuck with Diana, and she shared that she expects that community members in Busia County will take excellent care of resources provided by a library.

Diana shared that COCE’s partnership with UTA expanded the study abroad group’s connections with government officials, local hospital staff, teachers, students, and other community members. According to Diana, the cultural exchange event at our library site was a fun atmosphere where UTA students and local Kenyan community members were able to come together as a unified group. She said that community members were attentive to study-abroad students and expressed their gratitude for tutoring provided by the UTA study-abroad students.

Diana’s experience illustrates the importance of fostering international relationships with local Kenyan communities to create more chances to engage with community members at all levels and learn what it’s like to live in rural Western Kenya.  We hope you will continue with us on our journey, eager to discuss serious topics as part of our collective.

If you’d like to learn more about our library and how to contribute to its development, check out the following link: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/communitylibrary/.