This week, seven teachers and administrators from the WISER school in Kenya will arrive at Rutland High School. They will visit several school’s in the district during their stay, entering classrooms to share their experiences with students, as well as to spead awareness of WISER’s mission and learn from the interactions our teachers have with their students.

The WISER school, which opened its doors early this past January, is located in Muhuru Bay, Kenya, a small fishing village on the shore of Lake Victoria. WISER currently enrolls 30 young, female students from surrounding towns in the Nyanza province, all of who have been granted room and board on its campus. It is the first institution of its kind to offer secondary schooling to girls in this area, located on the outskirts of the Nyanza province, which is statistically the Kenyan province to have experienced the greatest socio-economic setbacks regarding disease and development.

According to the WISER website “[its] vision is to create a replicable model for generating gender parity in education, health and community leadership in the global south… [its] mission is to improve educational, economic, and health outcomes for girls; create gender allies in boys; and promote community-wide enhancements in health and development.”

WISER was co-founded by RHS alumnus Andy Cunningham. Andy has spent the past five years hard at work doing outreach for WISER, raising funds and awareness and organizing the project. Almost all of the Rutland area schools and our various clubs and groups have come together these past five years, doing some fundraising of our own, to foster the non-profit NGO. KEY Club, of which Mr. Cunningham is a former member, held a “harambee” earlier this year, where $2000 was raised through a silent auction and individual donations. All of this money was donated to the cause. The club has raised money for WISER in the past, put toward buying desks for the school.

When the WISER representatives arrived this week, the Commissioner of Education for the State of Vermont was in attendance to welcome them. Their visit will be a mutually beneficial experience, one that will provide both parties with a wealth of opportunity to learn about each others cultures; one that will hopefully shed light for every student on what it means to get an education, and what that education really means to them.