Staff stories: Festo Olang Achola, Education Co-ordinator and Head Teacher

• Age: 28 years old
• Marital status: Married
• Job title: Education Co-ordinator and Head Teacher

Educational background

• Sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in 1993.
• "O" level or Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in 1997 with the mean grade of C plain
• 2001-2003: Certificate of Primary Teachers Examination (PTE) and qualified as a P1

My work at Double Joy

I'm a professional teacher since my graduation from the college in the year 2003. Since then I have been an Education Co-ordinator. My role has involved guidance and counselling of the pupils for moral uprightness and educational excellence. It has also been my duty to keep the education storeledger and managing the school in line with the Ministry of Education policies. Prior to attending my college education, that's between 1998 and 2001, I had been a parent, which greatly equipped me with the knowledge of handling the children and being a role model. It is therefore my endeavour to encourage the children to achieve academic excellence but above all to develop interest in vocational training, which equips learners with ready employment opportunities after achieving the relevant skills in the polytechnic.

My place in the community

Being that I'm a fourth-born in a family of six, with two of my brothers still of school going age, it's my responsibility to pay school fees for one of the brothers who'll sit for his fourth form examination in 2006.

With my job I have been supporting my mother who is also very old. My village being some metres away from Double Joy, has been undergoing serious erosion with all topsoil eroded into Lake Victoria, which is a few metres from my village. Therefore it has been my responsibility to organise with school going youths during the August holiday to control the soil erosion. Aids pandemic which has proved to be a great challenge has stagnated development around this area, where most young people die, leaving the old ones with the burden of caring for the orphans. Economically the inhabitants are peasants who can hardly afford one dollar a day, and they majorly depend on agriculture for survival. There is poor road network/poor health facilities and serious unemployment. Most of these problems resulted because of poor literacy levels, therefore inability to understand and solve the stated challenges.