Marion college student collects books for Kenyan children

While on a mission trip in Kenya last summer, Kayte Kerr noticed many of books in the schools didn't relate to the African children.

“They were learning about the Western, white world,” Kerr says.

For her final project in a children's literature class at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, the 2007 Linn-Mar High School graduate decided to research and collect books related to African culture.

She sent letters to publishing companies, libraries and bookstores, asking for donations of children's books related to Africa.

Her biggest donation of about 20 books came from the Lincoln (Neb.) Public Schools media center.

Kerr, 21, left May 30 for a second trip to Kenya through Empowering Lives International, an organization she says “helps people help themselves.”

She hopes a library can be set up at the Kenya school with the nearly 50 books she collected. She also hopes more books will be donated to the library.

“The footwork has been done,” she says.

Kerr, an elementary education major at the University of Nebraska, doesn't know if she will teach internationally when she graduates next year. But her experience in Kenya has made a lasting impression.

“Teaching there is different,” she says.

One of the biggest differences is class size, with an average of 100 students per classroom in Kenya. She says dealing with the large class size will improve her classroom management and teaching methods.

“You have to be more creative because you don't have the same materials as here,” she says.

But even though the Kenyan children don't have as much as others, they are generally excited about school, Kerr says.

“They're so passionate about it,” she says. “They know this is their way out of the life they're living.”