Daraja Murals
During the summer of 2015, 2016, and 2019, I stayed at Daraja Academy in Kenya and painted a couple of murals on campus. Here are some photos and summary of why this matters to me.
The first mural is located by the Daraja students’ dormitory building. This is a space where students walk by everyday, whether it be doing laundry or walking between classes. The text “Daraja ni tuzo twajivunia” means “Daraja is our gift” in Swahili, and it is from the last line of the Daraja school anthem. Because of the limited supplies in the local area, my focus was to make the design as simple as possible, hence the black background with white outline filled with other colors. This turned out to be a good design for Daraja students to join the process for, making this work a group project, not just my own.
In 8th grade U.S. History class, my teacher would start lecture with a short video of CNN Youth News. Every week, it would feature different people around the world, and one morning, it was Malala Yousafzai, a girl who was shot by Taliban for going to school. It was unimaginable for me to understand the situation of having to risk your own life to receive education, and that was the first time I clearly saw the gender inequality in access to education. That news stuck with me, and I decided to join Daraja club in high school.
Daraja club is a student organization that supports Daraja Academy, which is a Kenyan secondary school for girls who would not be able to go to school otherwise. All of them have economic obstacles, and many of them also have social obstacles, such as society structures that had not invested in educating women. During school year, my club members and I would plan two fundraisers per semester and invited two Daraja girls to America for two weeks. After meeting them in person, I decided to stay at Daraja to learn more about the current accessibility to education. Time I’ve spent at Daraja not only exposed me to the realities of inaccessibility to human rights but also showed me the significance of collecting and believing in your strength even when your environment seems to turn its back against you.
After graduating high school, I founded Daraja at Berkeley, the first undergraduate student organization supporting Daraja Academy. With fundraisers and tutoring systems, my hope is to help Daraja Academy have as many Daraja students as possible attend university/college.
As much as women’s education is a global issue with deep roots, it fascinates me to learn about the complexity of this topic. Gradually, using data to solve social issues became my long term vision, and I am currently exploring ways that data science could contribute to women’s education.
