For his students, his job doesn’t end when they leave the classroom. He also makes sure they can get home without putting their lives at risk.
Jackson Ogonda works as a teacher at Mbale F.A.M Comprehensive School in Vihiga County, Kenya. During lunch break, several of his students have to cross the busy Kakamega-Kisumu road to get back to their homes.
The problem is that there is no pedestrian footbridge at that spot, and traffic can be especially heavy, particularly on Thursdays and Fridays. That’s why the teacher personally goes out onto the road to stand alongside the children, guide them, and help them cross safely.
The story became known after a parent driving by saw him helping the students and decided to share photos of the scene. The parent said that, as a guardian, it gave them peace of mind to see their children being looked after even outside the classroom.
The images quickly prompted messages of appreciation for the teacher, but they also opened up another conversation: many people began calling on the authorities to build a footbridge or a safe crossing so that neither the children nor the teacher himself would have to be exposed to traffic every day.
Until a permanent solution is found, he continues doing something that doesn’t appear in any lesson plan: standing by his students so they can all cross safe and sound.