A Discussion with Father Terry Charlton, Founder and Chaplain of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School, Nairobi, Kenya

With: Terry Charlton Berkley Center Profile

June 25, 2010

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in July 2010 undergraduate student Ryan Covington interviewed Father Terry Charlton, founder and chaplain of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School. In this interview Charlton discusses how St. Aloysius was founded, the role of Ignatian values in the school's curriculum and pedagogy, and his goals for St. Aloysius students. He also reflects on fundraising and the school's long-term financial sustainability.

Can you please speak about your background, and how these experiences brought you to your current work?

I’m a Jesuit from the United States. I joined the Jesuits right out of high school in 1966. I had a normal formation as a Jesuit and went on to eventually earn a doctorate in systematic theology. There was one meeting of young Jesuits from the Chicago Province that I was a member of, and at that meeting the provincial was speaking about Africa and how some of us might be needed to work in Africa because there was so much going on in terms of the relatively newly independent countries, in terms of the growth of the church, and I spontaneously found myself saying "I could do that." I was very shocked because I never thought about working outside of the United States before that, so I said maybe the Holy Spirit is speaking here so I better listen. I talked with my religious superiors about that, and eventually I was missioned to Africa in 1988 to Ghana, where I worked at a spirituality center, and then in 1990 here in Nairobi where I was missioned to teach at Hekima College Jesuit School of Theology.

[Christian Life Community, CLC] was one year old when I arrived, and I was asked to be involved. I’ve been involved with it as the national chaplain ever since. CLC is a lay movement based in Ignatian spirituality, so I’m sharing my own Jesuit heritage with members of CLC—working in spirituality, relationship with God, helping them build community, and helping them move into mission—trying to do that in a very reflective and discerning kind of way. Eventually that brought us to a group of CLC members visiting AIDS-infected people in Kibera, really as a work of visitation. This meant listening to what they were doing, what they were concerned about in their efforts to support these people, and hearing about the concern for the future of their children, which involved education. So we sponsored 12 students in Form One in 2003 and out of that came the decision to start the school in January 2004, taking the 12 students and adding a few more for Form Two so we had 21 for Form Two, and we had a class of 35 for Form One. It’s really been a wonderful experience to share Ignatian pedagogy, and our tradition certainly has strong thoughts and ideas about educating the whole person, opening up the world to people, and recognizing that people who are broadly educated in a way that involves values, involves openness to religious orientation, can really make those people passionate about being for others. As you know, we very much today talk about trying in our Ignatian tradition to form men and women for others. That’s really our goal: intelligent, well-educated, well-integrated persons who reach beyond themselves and reach out to others, to their neighbors, and even to the whole world beyond them.

It’s been very exciting for me to be a part of St. Aloysius. It’s been my first real experience of really working on the ground with people so much in need. I found it in many ways a transforming experience to see the hopes of these young people, the desires to learn and to make something of their lives, and to know that education is the way out of poverty for themselves and even for their families. To be a part of that has just been wonderful.

Could you please speak about the mechanisms, evaluations, and events that led to the decision of creating a school in 2003 and subsequently, key events and developments in the evolution of St. Aloysius that brought us to where it is today?

In terms of my own involvement, it really was that the leader of the group that were on the ground in Kibera with the families, with the students that we were supporting, came to me after discussion with the others who were involved as well and really talked with me about what they were looking at, what they were desiring, where the discernment they had reached, what they had came to about starting our own school, and it really was the case that I just thought "That’s so right" and affirmed it. Now, I was rather amazed at myself because I tend to be a rather cautious person, and we didn’t have any resources to do what we were committing to do, but as I mentioned, we started in a rather small way. We started with 56 students.

There were two things that really helped us say yes:

  1. One was very much that we had a structure. We had made the decision in CLC to have what we called a Development Desk, and the idea of the Development Desk was that it would source funding for mission projects that we would develop that were beyond the means of paying out of the pockets of our own members although, to that point, we had done nothing on the scale of the school but only small projects, such as 10 girls going for a tailoring course. We had accomplished in small ways and had some success, so we had a structure in place, and we could build on it. That was encouraging. If we didn’t have that structure, I don’t know if I would have felt the same way.​ 
  2. Joseph Oganda, the man who was leading the work on the ground and who came to me, was a Kenyan, a CLC member, and somebody who is really a go-getter. I really felt confident that with him involved in the project we could move forward. We needed the resources—first of all, money—but he’d find a place for us to have the school. He was on the ground, he was connected in Kibera, and he could manage it, and we could depend on him to manage it [Joseph Oganda has since moved to the United States].

It being clear that I would have a strong role in the fundraising, I wrote a letter to friends on my mailing list saying that this is a development, this is something we want to do. Do any of you know any funding agency that might support us? Actually, a Jesuit friend of mine from the Chicago Province—my province of origin—wrote back and said, "I am on a little-known committee of the province that disperses some funds in missionary countries outside the United States. Why don’t you put together a proposal, and we are meeting the first days of the year (in 2004), and we’ll see what we could do."

So we did that: We put together a shoestring budget that was $14,000 dollars and some change. We just didn’t know about our potential for fundraising. For example, we didn’t even talk about teacher salaries; we talked about teacher stipends, since the first year we were giving them so little. This committee gave us the whole amount, which was good for confidence and starting. It was not so good in that we didn’t keep working at fundraising throughout the course of the year, so we got to the end of the year and said, "Ah, we got to start raising funds." They had made it clear that they would only fund us for the first year. We began searching, and things were precarious.

We remained precarious until the end of 2006, and then the money started coming in. We were very blessed in that the Development Office of the Chicago Province Jesuits really liked the school and what we were trying to do, so they really supported us. In addition to our Development Desk here, they really became a structure through which we could work and raise money. I would do fundraising work through letters, through being in contact with people through e-mail, and that sort of thing. Also, when I would go to the United States, the Chicago Development Office would set up meetings, contacts, and things like that, work with me on setting up an agenda for travel and all of that sort of thing. All of this was tremendously helpful at that level, and they’ve continued to be a very effective partner in our enterprise. They bankrolled especially the first video we did, A School in Nairobi and the update, which really helped us tremendously with our fundraising because they brought the school concretely—visually and audibly—to the people we were trying to tell our story to. Those videos were tremendously effective.

We had a partner that was on the ground called Hands of Love Society. At first, the membership of Hands of Love was substantially members of CLC, and that changed over time and their goals and their ideals did not remain the same as ours. So we certainly drifted apart, and the way that I would speak about it would be that the school became an organization with two heads. Things were not working, and I think the school was suffering as a result of that. It was a very difficult moment, but eventually CLC said, "We have to take the school over, and we cannot continue partnering with Hands of Love Society." We were taking care of all of the funding, so the reality was CLC had the ability to do that. I think the school has been a lot better because of that.

Certainly something structural—which certainly we would have done differently in retrospect, but sometimes you learn from your mistakes—we started so small but then we grew so quickly: we started with 56 students and the second year 128 students, and then we were adding 70 students a year. At the beginning of 2007, having had our first graduates at the end of 2006, we started adding on the graduate program, which was another quantum leap.

At first, we were operating out of the Development Desk and out of our CLC office. We had a board of governors (BOG)—from probably 2005—but they weren’t really in charge of the school. They were almost an advisory board in the way that they functioned. We outgrew the structure that we were using. The BOG really only effectively took hold of the school towards the end of 2009. They were moving forward, but they effectively took hold of the school and did a big audit of the school, which included both a financial audit but I think more importantly, an all-round evaluation of the school with some outside evaluators. We learned a lot, and, certainly most importantly, the evaluators said was that we are really delivering something important to our clientele, in terms of the graduates, in terms of our education, enabling them to learn, making a tremendous influence in their lives and potential for the future. They said basically that we could do that better and specify that in a number of ways, and out of that, we have really improved tremendously this year in our delivery. 

The BOG worked really long, long hours at the end of 2009 with all kinds of committee meetings—only at that point had we set up committees in November—and working well into January and February within these committees to set up proper structures, proper ways of moving, whether it was with hiring, whether it was with the structure of the school (who reports to whom), and those sorts of things. It was late in coming, just because it’s, like, maybe you don’t have the right structures, but you are struggling with them because they are the structures you have, and then you wake up and say, "No, we have to do things a different way," and that’s what happened at the end of 2009, and I think that’s making a tremendous difference in the school.

Those would be some of the moments, and I think you know one of the big moments was the opening of the new school...our moving into the school on the twenty-eighth of May, our first day of classes on the thirty-first of May, and our celebrating that on last Sunday.

Could you please briefly discuss how you identified the USAID program as one you could work with as a partnership?

We identified it because we knew they were interested in funding high schools that had some American connection. You had to have an American connection, you had to have somebody in America who could work as a go-between on what’s on the ground here and the United States State Department—the ASHA program, American Schools and Hospitals Abroad. Certainly, it involved a lot of paperwork in terms of getting all the materials they wanted, in terms of background and ideals of the school, that we were fostering American values and then of course, the numbers: how much for what—the plans of the school. It was the Chicago Province Development Office that was willing to support us on that and really carry a lot of the burden of the actual work. We were also encouraged in making this application because we knew that they liked the Jesuits, because the Jesuits would use the money for what it was intended for and they would report back, which is very important for an agency like this arm of the U.S. government. That’s basically the story.

Could you please comment on the evolution or a change in the relationship between the school and the Kenyan government over time?

Our initial registration was through the Department of Social Services because we didn’t begin initially to meet the physical requirements the Kenyan government wanted for a school. We got in touch with the Department of Education and got their minimal requirements for a school like ours and realized that we could meet them at least for the level of a provisional registration. Now, it looks like we are very close to a permanent registration.

Could you please describe how you constructed your educational program in the framework of Ignation pedagogy?

First, I must say that because we are a school in Kenya following the Kenyan system of education, there’s a lot in place just in virtue of that—99 percent of the reality of what goes on in the classroom is in terms of that. The very heavy curriculum in terms of number of courses and an exam [Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, KCSE] taken at the end of secondary school that is very content-driven. You’ve got to master a body of material, so it’s not about basic concepts or thinking the way a theologian thinks, a physicist thinks, etc. It means a lot of emphasis on memory work, and if you’ve got that focus, an important part of what we want to do in terms of Ignation pedagogy is building in a parallel way. We are very interested in critical thinking, independent thinking, critiques of ideas and theories, and if the main thing you are doing is memorizing, then that can get in the way of those sorts of things. It is something we are trying to emphasize with our teachers to emphasize with our students, but the dominant system that we have to be a part of in order for our students to go on for tertiary education in Kenya is preparing our students for the KCSE. We do what we can to prepare our students both in the classroom and outside the classroom through our extracurriculars. There is more that we can do through debate clubs,or other clubs that can complement work done in the classroom.

What are the core values that you have attempted to instill in the students, and how have you adjusted these values for the particular context of Kibera?

The core values would be about educating the whole person. The academic component is very important, of course, but there is also the type of thing I was talking about in terms of not just being about to master the material, but being able to think critically, see relationships, and understand that a scientific theory is about what holds the most data together in a coherent way. We want our students to understand that there is a spiritual dimension to reality. There is an emphasis on values, our interconnectedness, and the idea of being for others. I believe that true human fulfillment is in our care for others—that’s the best of what it means to be human, so it’s very important that we are orientated ultimately in that direction. We want our students to understand that their education is not just about getting ahead for themselves or their family, but that it is for the betterment of society. I hope we are taking the Kenyan curriculum that has an emphasis on mastering a body of material, and then adding our components in. The material is the curriculum given to us from the syllabus given to us by the Ministry of Education, but how we try to bring more in—in terms of our values, in terms of our critical thinking, in terms of our orientation towards other—is really what’s at the core and we are using the curriculum for that.

One kind of adjustment—in terms of this idea of “men and women for others”—is that in the United States virtually all of our Jesuit high schools, if not all of them, would have a significant component of community service: work done during the semester that involves reflecting on the community service and integrating it into their own being. We said that the curriculum is too heavy to even attempt to do that in a meaningful way here at St. Aloysius. Therefore, when we saw the opportunity, the adaptation we made was creating a six-month program of community service—working four days a week with reflection on Friday—after graduation. This is an example of an adaptation we made to our particular environment to keep a core value.

What are the short-term goals for your students upon entering St. Aloysius, and what are the long-term goals for your students?

The short-term goals are to progress course-by-course, year-by-year to be well-prepared to take the KCSE at the end of the fourth year. Also, that our students are growing socially and spiritually. Very much, we want to keep developing in recognizing our longer-term goal academically that they do well on the KCSE, but we also want to do good vocational career planning. It’s not just something that begins after they complete the KCSE or receive their marks on the KCSE that we start saying “What are you going to do with your life?” It’s something that we are helping them reflect on. A big moment at the beginning of Form Three is when they drop some subjects and choose some subjects with the hope of doing so with a future career or goal in mind. In doing so, the goal is that students move onto good tertiary-level programs that fit their interests, aptitudes, and abilities, so they can be productive members of society and move forward economically, personally, and with their families. 

You have to make progress day-by-day, week-by-week, and year-by-year in all of these areas of integration and growth beyond academics even. If a short-term goal is the better socialization of each of our students—that they learn how to interact in more positive ways and mature ways with their peers, teachers, and community—then it contributes to our long-term goal of well-integrated persons who can be productive members of society.

What would you say is the educational threshold for a Kenyan citizen to obtain economic security?

You don’t do much in Kenya with only a high school education, certainly if you are poor. If you are middle-class, you might be able to go right into the family business or the family sets you up in business—the poor don’t have that possibility. I think the threshold is some professional qualifications, which can include technical or service qualifications (i.e. catering). Those kinds of qualifications really do make a difference, but the economy is tight, and having those kinds of qualifications does not mean that you are immediately going to get a job. Similarly, for the university-educated, it does not mean that you are going to get a job in your field. Certainly, something that does really open doors is if you have a university degree, but even for this you don’t always get a job immediately. They talk about walking the streets, knocking on doors, and trying to find something, but by and large they will find something. Certainly, something beyond high school education really is so important for being employable here in Kenyan in a meaningful way.

Can you comment on the impact that faith has had on the success of the school on a micro and macro level?

What I can say is that during prayer or monthly Mass, the students are very faith-filled, whatever their faith is—most are Christians of some denomination. I find that faith really supports them and really gives them hope. I think for most of our students, faith is a motivating factor. We are interested in having faculty members who are of a particular faith because of the type of school we are—we are a Catholic school. The more Catholic people are—in addition to having all of the qualifications for the job—I think it’s for the better because they have a certain Catholic perspective and take on things in general and what we are trying to do in the school.

Most of our fundraising is in a Catholic milieu. I know that the fact is that we are trying to educate people in a well-rounded way, but it does include a faith perspective. Although not trying to convert our students, a goal is that all of our students are exposed to Catholicism and give them an opportunity to learn about the Catholic faith if they so desire. Certainly, we are out to help them be religious in terms of whatever tradition is their background or whatever tradition they want to embrace. We are not going to turn somebody away because they are agnostic or atheist, but we believe that the religious side and spiritual side enrich life. We believe that it is true that God exists, and that is truth, so if people can experience knowing the truth, then all the better. The truth does set us free, and that includes religious truth as well. I believe that by and large for our benefactors, that is part of the package they wish to contribute to—to give to those providing a value-orientated education, but one that includes a religious perspective. I think it makes a difference there, but I think we can also justify our school to secular entities (i.e. United States government). We can justify the school at that level, but if somebody says “I don’t want to give to a school that has a religious orientation,” then we know that’s not the place for us to seek funding.

Could you please identify any obstacles that remain, and what structures do you envision putting in place to ensure that the school is a sustainable project?

Certainly, the Jesuits would like some kind of a formal arrangement that they would supply somebody in my position when I am gone. If that somebody is not an American and since most of our funding [comes from the United States], would that have a negative effect? If, for example, my successor was a Kenyan in that role, I don’t have an answer to the question of the effect. I can say that in the Chicago Province, there are Jesuits with the support of the structures of the Chicago Province who come from India or something like that, and they can be quite successful in fundraising. They say that the most important thing in fundraising is the ability to share and talk about something you are passionate about—it is not that you are from the same country as those you are talking to. 

I have been concerned that we begin to have an endowment. Part of your concern is to talk about how you do that because for the more wealthy, they understand about these things because they might be involved with foundations themselves and that sort of thing. For the average person who contributes to the school, the message they can hear is, “Well, you really don’t need my money anymore”—an interpretation that you start talking about an endowment when you are very secure in your operating budget, but I don’t think that’s the case for us. We have to keep raising money, year-by-year, for our operating budget, but at the same time we need to begin our endowment. It has to start sometime and the sooner the better—even if it starts small.

A concern I have is “Oh, you’ve got the school built now, so you must be in really good shape,” but the truth is that we still have to raise $1,000 per student and $1,000 per graduate a year. We have to keep going forward. Even the thing that the school looks so nice, it’s much easier selling your need when you are showing people mud walls and that sort of thing. Our situation right now is quite precarious—partially because there were a lot of expenses associated with building a school that we were not aware of. You have an architect's drawing that shows nice pavement around the school, but then you find out that that’s not part of the contract. It’s not cost overruns from our perspective, but costs that were not expected. Some people will designate money for operating budget and others for building, but most of the money we get from our donors—individual benefactors or families—is undesignated. We thought we had a lot for operating, but more and more was going into things we hadn’t anticipated for the building. We really are in a precarious situation right now.

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