My Dream is to be a Life Changer

I come from Kitui County, a place called Mwitika. I don’t remember my father. He and my mother separated a long time ago. I don’t know him. I have never met him. People always ask me if I’m curious about my father.

I must say that growing up without a father has had some effects on me. There is a time you need a father around you because there are some things you can’t share with your mother. My mother wasn’t around for a long time as it were. I stayed with my grandmother when I was in primary school but it got too expensive for her so I was taken to a children’s home in Ruai, Embakasi which was a boarding school facility. It was like a rehabilitation center. It had all manner of street children and the like.

Living with the street children in the home toughened me up. It was a rough life. I’m a small bodied young man, but the school toughened me so much and gave me authority. In that school nobody handed you anything, you had to fight for it. I may be small, but I could talk and the big guys would listen. There were time some boys would come into school with weapons. The environment was just tough and the punishments in the school would equally be tough. That hardened me.

I was a brilliant student, always top of the class. In class six, the school developed a program which would see three top students sponsored to high school. I knew I had to make it to the top three because I knew when I complete my primary school, getting a sponsor for my high school education would be a great challenge. I therefore put focus on reading hard and managed to score 368 points out of the overall 500. Unfortunately, I missed a chance in the coveted top three spots. However, I managed to join a high school in Kitui. I had culture shock, transitioning from a city school to a village school. The weather was brutal and the indiscipline level in the school was horrendous. I just wanted out! It wasn’t a place for me. My aunt convinced me to stay on and having no options, I did scoring a C+ in my KCSE exams.

How I came to learn of KCDF is through a friend of mine when I was still in high school, but before anything happened after completing high school, I was tutoring in a new secondary school for KES 4,000. I then applied for Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) and joined Kenyatta University where I am studying Environmental Planning and Management.

Through KCDF I got in contact with GGBC through the Window of Opportunity (WOO) which accommodates around 28 young men. GGBC is currently supporting my education fees and upkeep. Through USAID support, I have been exposed to the life skills workshops and I am looking forward to being assigned a mentor since I never had a father or a male figure in my life. I’m looking for someone who can not only give me direction in life socially, but also professionally.

My dream is to be a life changer, to be the kind of person who impacts someone’s life. I’m currently giving back at Imani Children’s Home, they have two units – one in Kayole and the other in Malindi. I have been to both centers and I love that I’m finally giving back my skills and time and giving someone else an opportunity like I was given.