Kilifi School Initiates Talent Nurturing Program
By Ronald Ngoba
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
A charity-based school in Kibarani Ward of Kilifi County has started an ambitious initiative seeking to cultivate and nurture school-going children’s talents.
Vonwald School’s deputy headteacher Macdonald Ndaa says the co-curriculum programmes seek to identify and tap talents at an early age as a way of preparing children for the world that has become an environment of sport creativity.
According to him the introduction of co-curriculum games have empowered the students to recognise their hidden potentials at a tender age.
“The co-curriculum programmes are meant to develop communication skills, give the leaners an experience of fellowship and mutual aid, which is a very important component of a well-balanced personality. Sports has become one of the most paying jobs in the world.”
He says the school operates under Gapeka Children’s Hope Center that provides facilities for numerous co-curriculum activities designed as talent search initiatives.
“Apart from academic, we have a cocktail of sports activities which include table tennis, basketball, football, badminton, netball, swimming among others. We have trainers who are working timeously in supporting the students to acquire sports skills which are very important in today’s global job market.”
The initiatives have propelled the school not only in the academic sphere, but also performing arts and sports apart from instilling discipline in all aspects of students’ development, the deputy headteacher adds.
In his views, sports programmes are aimed at nurturing talents and keeping students away from drugs and substance abuse.
The school, he says, will continue to support and nurture students’ talents so as to deter them from engaging in ‘negative energies’ that may distract them from their life dreams.
Kelvin Menza, a basketball player, says the co-curriculum activities have helped them mould their characters and behaviours.
On the hand, a badminton player Saumu Kadzo urges the County government and education stakeholders to come up with policies that can transform youths in sports.
The Gapeka Childrens Hope Centre operates Kilifi Vonwald Primary and Secondary Schools where disadvantaged children learn for free.
The majority of parents have been taken their children in the boarding section of the school to ensure and enable them to concentrate on their studies that would otherwise be affected back home.
The centre is also supporting the education of close to 2,000 students in colleges and universities across the country and has also built hundreds of houses for widows and single mothers funded by philanthropists from overseas.
