What is the Big Idea?

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What is the Big Idea?

By mosh ⋅ October 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

So it’s been a couple of weeks since this website went live. It is by no means complete - we are currently in the final stages of testing. Meanwhile, the site continues to evolve. Are any of you still wondering what, exactly, is the big idea behind Kikulacho? Let me tell you a story. I’m going to tell you a story about Ken, a young trainee teacher who is passionate and focused in all that he does. Ken is ready to devote his life to early childhood education.

Ken is just back from a teaching internship in one of the more rural parts of the Rift Valley. He was teaching class 5 kids English. Now, to these kids, English is a third language. They speak their mother-tongue first then Kiswahili and then English. English is very rarely used outside the classroom and it is not uncommon for teachers of other subjects to use other languages (other than English) to explain concepts in their classrooms. Therefore, Ken’s life as an English teacher is quite challenging. How do you teach English, and do it well, to kids who probably only use it in your class and in writing exams?

“The problem is that these kids just don’t have enough practice with English. There’s literally no way they can use it out of class. Worse, there’s almost zero reading material for them at school apart from textbooks,” says Ken. He adds, “I feel that my job would have been much easier if we had a lot more stuff to read and discuss in class.”

What can we do about this? What if we could do something about this?

Kikulacho aims to be a center of discussion about issues that affect Kenya; a website that is based on the concept of open publishing. If you have something you want to share with Kenya, Kikulacho provides the easiest platform in which you can do just that. So that’s it, basically: you want to say something say it here and reach lots more than many places and easily as well. Think of it as an opportunity to get all your ‘letters to the editor’ published fast and easy. Actually not just published but used and displayed as the main content. Your thoughts and opinions are important to us.

Perhaps you’re still in school and you just wrote a killer essay - the type that the teacher reads out loud in class - and you want to share it. Or maybe you’re in university doing a writing intensive course and you need to practice, or just to see how well your writing is received by readers. What if you learnt of something amazing and you wanted to share it with as many people as you could? In all these cases, Kikulacho is the answer. Write it and we’ll publish it.

Does the fun have to stay online, though? Considering that in Kenya the majority of the people cannot access the internet, Kikulacho simply cannot be a purely online platform. We have to go offline to maximise the chances that the largest possible number of Kenyans will take part, and we will. Every so often, we shall print a ‘magazine’ version of Kikulacho which shall contain all the stuff that you will have submitted on this website. Imagine that! Seeing your name in print can be as easy as sending an email. This is where Ken fits in. Wouldn’t having free copies of a magazine made up entirely of authentic Kenyan voices talking of everyday issues be of great benefit to classrooms in rural Kenya, or elsewhere? Think about it.

What if someone in Garissa, or Mandera, or Turkana, or wherever else wanted to tell Kenya something? How can people in such remote areas have their voices heard? Well, they can write to a popular newspaper’s editor (but will they be published?); or they can get online and start a blog or submit something to Kikulacho (but can they get online?); or they can send Kikulacho a ‘letter to the editor’ (we won’t edit their letter, we’ll just publish it on this website. A while later they will see it in print, on paper).

So what is Kikulacho? It is whatever you want it to be. Learn more about Kikulacho.