Nyack Teacher Seeks Supplies for Kenyan Classrooms

Angie Sampath’s childhood home was her classroom. Now her classroom is the world. An early childhood educator and head teacher at Nyack’s Little Schoolhouse, Sampath is now working with refugee children in Kenya and she needs your help to stock her classrooms.

Her mother, Christa, started a day care center in their home on Lawrence Street 25 years ago. Having just moved from New York City, Christa wanted to find an ideal nursery school for Angie. When she failed to locate one, she decided to open her own nursery school with her daughter and four other children. Decades after the doors opened, the program is so popular that it always has a waiting list.

After graduating from New York University with a dual major in elementary and special education, Angie spent a few years in California where she worked as a teacher before returning to become the head teacher in her literal school-house.

Earlier this year, Angie learned that a Little Schoolhouse parent, Rhonda Fleischer, was running an educational program in Kenya that resettles refugees from Sub Saharan Africa in the United States. She applied for an internship and was accepted. “My role focuses on developing activities that expose young African children to American culture and the English language,” Sampath says.

“Another part of my job is to take a closer look at the materials available for the caregivers to use in the classroom and come up with suggestions for new toys, educational games and art materials that might further enhance the children’s learning during their time here.”

Angie works for the Resettlement Support Center Africa, a project of the Church World Service. Their offices are located in Nairobi but they have field teams that travel to refugee camps all throughout Africa to provide services.

The people of Kenya have already had a profound impact on Sampath.  “The sense of ‘we are all in this together’ can be seen on a grand scale here,” she says. “Kenya is developing very rapidly, and many of the latest technologies and advances are both economically accessible and based on environmentally friendly practices that benefit the society. For example, they have cell phones that have solar powered batteries- so cool!”

Even though Sampath is halfway around the world, she is surrounded by the likeness of America’s political leader in his ancestral home. “Everyone here is so caught up on President Obama. You see his face in many places, and people are always asking me my thoughts on him.”

“My roommate had the opportunity to have tea with [Obama’s] grandmother who lives in a small village.  She is using the money from her fame to have power installed in her town, pave local roads, and have running water installed in the houses in her village.”

Sampath’s internship ends in early August. Her mother intends to visit and see how the classroom experience that started in their home has impacted children on the other side of the world. Christa will also be bringing materials donated from Nyack to stock Angie’s Kenyan classrooms.