“My name is Sean Clancy and I’m a 17-year-old student in St Vincent’s Castleknock College in Dublin Ireland. This year I was granted the opportunity to travel to Matisi, Kenya on a school immersion programme with the Vincentian Lay Missionaries (VLM).

It was an amazing experience from start to finish and I have gained so much in all aspects from the time I spent in Matisi. I travelled to Kenya on June 1st from Dublin with 11 of my peers and 3 teachers. We were teaching at St Vincent De Paul Academy Matisi which felt like a home away from home from St Vincent’s Castleknock College. We would teach from 8:30 am to 12:30 and break for lunch and have some traditional dishes such as ugali and many other Kenyan dishes and then teach until 2pm and play a variety of sport such as volleyball and soccer and taught the children some Irish sports such as Rugby and Hurling and great fun was had by all.

Each day in the school was an amazing experience and always different. The pupils ranged in age from 4 to 15 and each day we thought them a range of subjects such as English, Maths, Religion, Science. They also tried to teach us their native language Kiswahili and we shared our native language of Irish. We learned lots each day from them and we hope they learnt from us also.

The hospitality shown to us by the Daughters of Charity was amazing. We also witnessed first-hand the fantastic work of the sisters and what they do in the community.
We saw the work being done at the Upendo street boys project which was truly eye opening and will certainly have a lasting impact on me as we saw them helping boys our own age and younger who were living on the streets of Kitale and the amazing work they did with the people in need in the surrounding area.

This experience and time spent in Matisi is certainly life changing and will be something I will cherish forever.”