Blog

by NTS Staff

Welcome, Agnes Nyabiage Otwere, Our New English Teacher!

Please join NTS as we welcome our new senior English teacher, Agnes Nyabiage Otwere. We wanted skill, heart, and the spark to inspire. We searched for three months and met many strong candidates. When Agnes walked into the building, we knew within minutes we had our match.

Agnes is a good listener with a strong background in youth training. In her interview, we asked her how she would handle a student falling behind. She said she would first try to understand why. Then she would help the student directly, or bring in the necessary support . Her answer showed empathy and a practical problem-solving approach, the perfect touch for NTS students.

Agnes credits her family for her love of both work and education. Education always came first for her parents. Rather than push her toward marriage, as Kenyan tradition expects, they pushed her toward her professional dreams. They cheered her through every stage of her schooling, and when she felt discouraged, they would not let her settle for less than her best. That support has shaped the teacher she is today.

Her interest in English was sparked at Rangenyo Girls High School where she focused on writing and spoken English. By graduation, she was fluent and certain she wanted to be an English educator.

At Kisii University she added the missing piece, pairing education with her English studies. The university gave her confidence and depth, and she graduated ready to teach.

In the classroom, Agnes covers the four pillars of English. She teaches reading, writing, speaking, and listening. She wants her students to do more than pass the national NITA exam. She wants them to live in English, to use it every day, with confidence and ease. She enjoys building lesson plans and leading classroom discussions, but what excites her most is what happens outside of class. Today, she is launching a “Lunch in English” program. Students share lunch with her or another teacher, and the conversation runs in English, on whatever passion they choose.

Agnes’ goal is to be a teacher who changes lives. “My life journey reflects determination, hard work, and a strong passion for education. I am committed to making a difference through teaching and helping students achieve their full potential.”

As she says this, her smile gives her away. Her energy and her optimism are contagious.

Welcome to NTS, Agnes. We are so fortunate to have you as a vital member of our community!

by NTS Staff

At Nyamboyo Technical School, we often talk about what our students do with their hands. Electrical Wiring. Tailoring. Masonry. Hairdressing. These are the trades that will shape our students’ futures. We are enormously proud of what they learn and accomplish in our classrooms and workshops. But hands, it turns out, are only part of the story.

Our students arrive at NTS carrying something that cannot be measured on a national exam. They carry the weight of lives shaped by poverty — by hunger, by crowded homes, by worries no teenager should have to hold alone. If we only address the technical side of our students’ education and ignore the emotional and psychological side, we are not truly preparing them for the world. We are only doing half the job.

That is why we launched our monthly counseling program.

What Poverty Does to a Young Person

Nyamboyo Village is a community of nearly 58,000 people. It is rich in culture and natural resources. It is also a place where many families live on very little. For our students, this means daily realities that most people in the outside world rarely have to think about.

It means going to bed hungry and coming to school the next day and trying to concentrate. It means living in homes that are deeply overcrowded, where there is no quiet space and no privacy, and where sleep is not always restful when you share a bed with 4 others. It means having no reliable access to clean water or sanitation. It means watching family members go without medical care because there is simply no way to afford it.

It also means something that is harder to name but just as real. It means growing up in households where the adults around you are under tremendous pressure. Poverty is exhausting and demoralizing. When adults are stretched to their limits by stress and hardship, children can become the nearest target for that frustration. Many of our students have experienced anger, harshness, or worse, directed at them at home — not because they are unloved, but because the adults around them are drowning.

These experiences do not simply disappear when a student steps through our gates. They travel with our young people. They shape how students feel about themselves, how they relate to others, how they handle setbacks, and how they imagine their futures. Research on poverty-related trauma tells us that when these experiences go unaddressed, they can hold a person back for years.

Small Groups, Big Conversations

Once a month, we gather our students into small groups to talk.

The groups are intentionally small. We have found that our students open up in ways they never would in a large assembly or a full classroom. When there are only a few people in the room, it feels safer. Students can speak at their own pace, in their own words. They can listen. They can discover that the thing they have been ashamed of or frightened by is something their classmates understand — because they have lived it too.

The Professionals Behind Our Program

One of the most important decisions we made in designing this program was bringing in professional counselors from outside NTS.

Our sessions are led by Alyce Ngige, director of Renewed Hope Counseling Center, who brings a team of six trained local counselors to work with our students each month. Their expertise is invaluable. But beyond their professional qualifications, something else matters enormously — they are not our students’ teachers.

That distinction turns out to be everything.

Our teachers are trusted, respected figures in our students’ lives, which is precisely why students may hesitate to be fully honest with them. Shame and embarrassment are powerful forces, especially for teenagers. A student who loves and respects a teacher may not be able to tell that teacher that she goes to bed hungry most nights, or that the anger in her home frightens her, or that she has questions about her own body that she has never felt safe enough to ask. The relationship that makes a teacher powerful in the classroom can create an invisible barrier in a counseling context.

With Alyce and her team, that barrier lifts. Students know that what they say in the room stays in the room. They are speaking with professionals whose entire purpose is to listen without judgment — not to grade them, not to report back to school leadership, not to see them in the hallway the next morning as their teacher. That distance creates freedom. And in that freedom, our students speak.

What We Talk About

The conversations are not easy. We address things that are rarely spoken about openly in our community. What it feels like to be hungry and embarrassed. What it does to a child to witness adult rage directed at them. The weight of worrying about a sick family member and knowing there is no money for a doctor. The shame that poverty can place on young shoulders.

We also discuss psycho-sexual health which is rarely addressed honestly in schools or homes in our region. Our students are teenagers navigating changes in their bodies and growing awareness of their own sexuality, often without reliable information or anyone safe to ask. Alyce and her team create a space where students can understand their bodies, ask questions without embarrassment, and receive accurate, respectful answers. This knowledge is not separate from their well-being — it is central to it.

What happens when these things are named aloud, in a safe space, among peers and guided by professionals? Something shifts. Students begin to understand that their struggles are not personal failings. They are the predictable consequences of circumstances that no child chose. That understanding is not a small thing. For many of our students, it is the beginning of something new.

What We Are Building

Experience has taught us that vocational training alone cannot accomplish that mission. A young woman who graduates as a certified hairdresser but has never been given the chance to process her own experiences — to grieve what was hard, to understand her own resilience, to build the kind of inner confidence that carries her through the inevitable obstacles of adult life — is less equipped than she could be.

Our counseling program is not a replacement for professional mental health services. In an ideal world, every student would have access to trained therapists and sustained psychological support. We are working toward expanding what we offer, including family support programs and crisis resources.

But what we have created is something real and meaningful.  It is a monthly space where young people are seen, heard, and reminded that they matter. Where the experiences they have survived are acknowledged. Where they build bonds with peers who understand. And where the idea takes root, quietly and steadily, that their futures are not determined by the circumstances of their childhoods.

An Invitation

If you are reading this, you are someone who cares about what happens to young people in Nyamboyo. We thank you for that.

Supporting NTS means supporting the whole student — the skilled professional they are becoming, and the full human being they already are. Our counseling program, like all of our support programs, depends on the generosity of people who believe that young people in remote, under-resourced communities deserve the same investment in their wellbeing that young people anywhere deserve.

If you would like to learn more or help us expand this program, we welcome you to get in touch at info@nyamboyotechnical.org.

Together, we are building something that lasts.

By NTS staff

Last week, something powerful happened at Nyamboyo Technical School.

We held our annual AFRIpads training, a 2-day workshop on human reproduction and menstrual health.  This year, it wasn’t just “successful.” It was deeply moving — the kind of experience that reminds you why education, when paired with dignity and practical support, can change a young person’s life in an instant.

What is AFRIpads?

AFRIpads is a social enterprise focused on menstrual health and hygiene, best known for manufacturing high-quality reusable sanitary pads and related menstrual products. Their approach goes beyond distributing materials, combining menstrual health education with practical solutions designed to remove barriers that keep girls out of school and limit confidence. Reusable kits are also more cost-effective and waste-reducing, which matters in rural communities where ongoing access to disposable products is unreliable.

A Strong Foundation — Then a Breakthrough

This term, our students have been learning about reproductive health. These lessons matter. They give students technical language so they can speak with less awkwardness about deeply personal issues. They build confidence. They created a foundation that allowed the AFRIpads sessions to go deeper — not as a first introduction, but as a real conversation.

And that conversation came alive.

From the start, students leaned in. They listened intently. They asked thoughtful questions. At times, the discussions were emotional — because for many of our teenagers, especially our girls, this topic is not theoretical. It’s personal, urgent, and tied to everyday survival.  Pregnancy can end a promising career.  HIV can be fatal.

Expert Leadership Makes the Difference

A big part of what made this training so impactful was the leadership behind it.

Norah Kadesa is our outside trainer and menstrual health expert, and she comes to NTS each year to lead this training. Her experience, clarity, and warmth set the tone immediately — students trust her, and that trust creates the conditions for honest learning.

She was joined by Rael Mogusu, our Deputy Director, who is also a registered nutritionist and an expert in female health. Together, Norah and Rael brought both professional expertise and deep cultural understanding, which helped students feel safe, seen, and respected.

Safe Spaces Create Honest Voices

After a joint session with all students — including an AFRIpads baseline survey to evaluate their knowledge — we separated into groups to create comfort and safety:

• Boys met with Jones Obiria, NTS Founder and Director
• Girls met with Norah Kadesa and Rael Mogusu

Then we did something new: we separated the younger girls, our Year 1 studentes, into their own smaller group.

That choice transformed everything.

You could see their innocence and curiosity right away — and you could also see their caution. Cultural norms often teach young people to stay silent about reproductive health. But slowly, the room changed.

Questions came with hesitantly raised hands.  Honest ones. Brave ones. Sometimes whispered at first, then spoken clearly. And every question — every single one — was met with care, clarity, and respect.

The result was something rare in rural communities: open dialogue without shame.

The Joy on Their Faces Was Unforgettable

Then came a moment we won’t forget.

When the girls received their AFRIpads menstrual materials, the room lit up.

Our students come from poverty, where access to menstrual hygiene products is limited or inconsistent. For some girls, this lack of access affects attendance, confidence, and health. It can quietly interrupt education in ways outsiders rarely see.

So when the pads were distributed, what we witnessed wasn’t just gratitude.

It was relief. It was joy.  It was dignity.

The younger girls were thrilled — smiling in a way that said, I feel seen. And the older girls, whose previous supplies had already been used up, were equally grateful to receive replacements.

A powerful reminder: when you combine education with practical support, you don’t just deliver information — you restore confidence.

Boys Engaged — and That Matters

The boys’ session was also a bright spot.

They participated actively and respectfully. They asked questions. They wanted to learn more. Their inclusion matters because reducing stigma around menstruation doesn’t happen when we educate girls alone — it happens when boys learn to understand, respect, and support.

One of the strongest outcomes from this training was seeing reproductive health education embraced by both genders.

What We Learned: Our Students Are Hungry for Knowledge

If there is one thing we would improve, it’s time.

In Kenya, it’s taboo to talk about reproduction in a family.  So, our students want to know more, to learn about their bodies.  We held Q&A session that went on for, literally hours, because students had so much to ask. That’s the kind of “challenge” we’re grateful for: teenagers hungry for knowledge and asking for more opportunities to learn.

We also heard something important from the boys: While education is essential, they also want to feel supported and included in practical ways. Moving forward, we will explore additional engagement resources for boys — materials and activities that reinforce their role as allies and informed peers.

We thank AFRIpads for their products and the investment they have made in creating education materials that protect dignity.  We thank our community for supporting this effort.  Our students are growing, not only into skilled professionals,  but also into confident, informed adults.

To be continued — because as our students ask for more, we’re listening.

By NTS staff

In rural Kenya, you learn quickly that electricity is never something you can take for granted.

At Nyamboyo Technical School, power outages are a normal part of life—but “normal” doesn’t mean easy. In our area, outages happen for all kinds of reasons: severe weather, improperly maintained equipment, and even government shutdowns connected to periods of political violence. The result is the same: the lights go out, the internet drops, the phones struggle, and suddenly the simplest tasks become complicated.

When the power is down, it doesn’t just affect the classroom. It limits our communication and can completely shut down the workflow between NTS and our U.S. team, as well as with our vendors, service providers and emergency medical providers. In a school that depends on coordination—supplies, reports, payroll, planning, documents, donor updates—losing power can freeze progress instantly.

The hardest part is the unpredictability.

If we knew outages would happen every day from 2–4 p.m., we could plan around it. But that’s not how it works. The power might go down for ten minutes or ten hours. It might go off right as we’re trying to complete something time-sensitive with our U.S. colleagues—an urgent decision, a financial deadline, a critical document that needs to be sent, a call that can’t be rescheduled. And because the causes are outside our control, you can’t “problem solve” your way out of it in the moment. You can only wait.

Until now.

After weighing the impact of these outages on school operations, our Board made a clear decision: We needed a new generator—one that is efficient, quiet, and reliable. Not a temporary fix. Not a patchwork solution. A real operational backbone that would protect our ability to function even when the grid fails.

And then our Board did what strong Boards do. They came together and raised the funds.

Because of their commitment and follow-through, NTS now has a new generator.  It’s a Maybach MB6000LHEW with dual welding capability, which means it can also be used for welding when the school needs to make repairs to any of our steel infrastructure.  It runs on diesel for up to 8 hours and powers the entire school.

This is more than equipment—it’s a shift in what is possible for our school. For the first time, we are not at the mercy of forces that have felt beyond our control. We have power when we need it. We can keep working. We can stay connected. We can run the school with confidence and consistency.

The benefits are immediate. Our staff can communicate reliably. Our operations can move forward even during outages. Our students benefit as we become more “wired” in how we work—more able to use technology, more able to plan and deliver learning consistently, more able to function like the professional institution we are building.

This is what empowerment looks like in practice: not a big speech, but a practical tool that removes a barrier and unlocks momentum.

And we’re not stopping here.

The next step is solar energy.  So, to be continued…