Kenya’s Got Talent! - Africa and Asia Venture

Kenya’s Got Talent! - Africa and Asia Venture

Talent show at Marinyn Primary School by Hattie Landells - Kenya 2009

We woke up at 7am to the usual sounds of children playing at school before lessons start at 8:20.  This particular day, however, lessons were being replaced by a school talent show we had organised. After stumbling out of bed we swiftly gathered together the posters, prizes, balloons and ribbons we had bought to decorate the school, and made our way up to the school gates. As we started putting up the decorations, the children realised what was happening (some of them, despite our best attempts at advertising it throughout the school, evidently had forgotten the talent show was even planned for today) and they started to scream and shout with excitement. I will never forget the look of amazement on their faces as we put up the balloons and ribbons around the school assembly area, where we were going to hold the talent show. 

An hour later, all the other teachers were sitting behind the ‘judges' panel' in the blazing sun, with the entire school outside, eagerly waiting for the start of the show. As we then called up the performances (there must had been nearly 100) one by one, the audience became so entransed that they were falling over each other as they unsubtly moved closer to the ‘stage' to get a better view.

From singing and dancing songs like ‘Doe, ray, me' and ‘oh happy day,' reciting poetry, and performing some utterly fantastic plays they had put together, we were very impressed with the children, most of whom had never performed to an audience before, and the teachers found it very moving. 

By early afternoon the performances had all finished and we set up prize giving, with small packages of pens and lollipops, sweets and two small trophies from the local supermarket to present to the best performers.  Both we and the teachers alike felt very proud of all the children, and one of the teachers gave a very moving speech after prize giving to say that this talent show would now become a yearly event and that it had made Marinyn history!

Volunteer Teaching in Kenya

Back