Every Thursday for the past five months I have volunteered at the Kabete Rehabilitation School. This has been no easy task. Many of these young men come from broken homes, have been involved in drugs and petty offences and have even lived on the streets. They are not prim and proper but are rough on the edges and you would understand why!
Psychologists state that our character is shaped by two things: Nature and nurture. How we are in terms of our genetics causes us to behave in certain ways- this is nature. On the other hand we are shaped by our upbringing. What is modeled to us in our home, we become. Of course there are so many factors that determine who we become eventually. Choices play a vital role. You can choose to be different despite your genetic structure or your upbringing!
However, for some people it is not as easy as receiving information and then implementing it, it takes time and work. This is exactly what teaching music at the school has presented me with- time and work. I not only teach them music, I teach them life skills, etiquette and the basic mannerisms every well adjusted human being should have. I don't treat them like hoodlums, I treat them like young men who need a second chance, and don't we all? But to rebuff anyone based on their past actions is the worst mistake we could ever make.
In rehabilitating behaviour, there is no place for "hit and run". One needs to take time and effort to unlearn and relearn what caused that ill behaviour in the first place. Deterrence and retribution have their place in causing an individual to change. However, in my opinion it is the soul that needs to change first before a certain behaviour is changed. It can never be the other way around. That is why for example, a criminal serving the life imprisonment can be released to only go back to the same crime that caused them to be imprisoned!
"New Dawn" is a program I felt the need to initiate at the Kabete Rehabilitaion School. So far there is a great change in the young men. My hope is that they will truly be rehabilitated in order to change their communities. Music as a tool has given them a way to express themselves. I am training them in choir, instruments and theory of music. In addition to this, I am preparing them for the Kenya National Music Festivals. This is a feat for both I and the students because it will be our first time at the Festivals, however not our last.
Community change equals world change and I have decided to jump on the “change train” for my community, will you?
Click here to see the boys from Kabete in one of their classes....
