2023 - A Year in Reflection
If you had asked us 12 months ago where GLAD would be, we could not have imagined all that we would accomplish or the lives we would get to impact.
Kenya
The Summer of 2023 we got to witness how GLAD could transform the lives of 16 Kenyan students.
We knew we wanted to give students the best education we could offer, and Ben’s work with curriculum development and web development made all the difference. Many said “there’s nothing like this in all of Kenya.” We focused on project-based, hands-on practice. We provided professionals to mentor them. And by the end, our students walked away with a portfolio of quality work to show potential employers.
They also walked away with a lifetime of memories. How do you describe what it’s like to watch someone enjoy pizza for the first time? Or jump into a swimming pool for the first time? There’s a profound joy in those moments. Because they bring hope for a different future than many have ever known from their life in the slums or rural Kenya. For 10 weeks surviving wasn’t the focus. Learning and thriving was.
Every Sunday we’d have an international cooking night. While we cooked, we would play music and enjoy each other’s company. One of our students, standing in the doorway looking into the scene said, “this feels like what home should be.”
We intuitively knew this program had to be more than teaching computer skills. But it took months afterwards to see why. When students returned to their homes and the challenges waiting for them, the group became their lifeline. They continue to meet every week to encourage each other and keep studying. One student, when realizing she had no power or internet in her rural home, was offered a bed in the home of another student so she could continue her studies.
Sacramento
Serving our Local Afghan Refugee Population
Can you imagine arriving in the US from a war-torn country like Afghanistan and trying to keep your family afloat? Imagine being a parent trying to help your child succeed at school. You need to navigate the web to check grades, join a Zoom call or use Google Translate to write an email. We got to help with this with our partnership with International Rescue Committee (IRC) Sacramento!
We built a new pipeline to employment with IT Skills
This fall we found more ways to serve refugees in Sacramento. With the help of CITE, a California-based IT in education association, we were able to offer a 12-week IT certification program and 2/3rds of the students were refugees. The program combined IT skills with the nuances of working for a school district, which is close to Ben’s heart as a previous IT professional for schools. When a district IT director did practice interviews with our students, he said he would hire them in a second!
Over this last year, GLAD has become something much bigger than us, thanks to all of you!
And we’re just getting started! So stay tuned!
