Then What Happened?

Call it a Foundation if You Wish. Who Cares What You Call It?

The good book aptly puts it that a prophet(ess) is never honored at his (her) own home. And true to the fact, never do we care to look in our own backyards to acknowledge, recognize and appreciate people who’ve, by immeasurable ways and means done incredibly good deeds to fellow humanity. Many are the times when we look at big personalities from big families. Truth, however, is that there are uncountable unsung heroines and heroes in our midst, who’ve, in their own ways made life have meaning to thousands if not millions of us. They have made life to have taste the way does salt to food.

Some students who have excelled in their academic works have benefitted from charitable organizations, generous individuals or philanthropic foundations like Ford, Rockefeller, Jomo Kenyatta and the ilk and in recent years Equity Bank inter alia. Through their help, many have been granted an opportunity to further their academic pursuit. It is befitting ergo, to give credit to such individuals, corporations and foundations that have been in the forefront to help the needy students continue with their academic dreams.

Away from these foundations and corporations that may be known to many, are individuals whose contribution to the same cause cannot be over emphasized. In Meru County for instance, a one Mr. Godfrey Kaibiria Mwereria established a school at Muthara market just 29 km from Meru town on your way to Maua. Muthara High School (for that is the school’s name) was established in the 80’s by the former Kenyatta University don who was then working with the UN. The letter and spirit of establishing the institution was well founded. However, the school did not pick up as anticipated because the proprietor – Mr.Mwereria’s visionary idea was still alien to his own people (the would be his customers).

Having been born and bred in the humble abode of Muthara location, Mr. Mwereria understood well how the pangs of hunger and the pains of poverty bite. And that is why, armed with a masters degree and his international interaction recipe, he set to help his own poor people by first liberating them with education. He acquired a piece of land along       the Meru-Maua road, a few kilometers from his rural Nchuui home and set up the present –day Muthara High School. Being the first of its kind as a private school in the area, many a people were cynical and said that Mr. Mwereria was out to swindle them of their little money, hence sending their children to other neighboring secondary schools charging far more money for fees – thanks to the “Harambee Secondary Schools” and “Harambee classes” started under former president Moi’s stewardship.

What these people didn’t know, or rather failed to understand, is the uniqueness of Mr. Mwereria’s idea of a school and how noble it was. For one, the curriculum was not as rigid as that in public schools. School uniform on the other hand was not a strict requirement for the students. Outrageous as it may sound to some, back then it was common for a student to miss school because of lack of this erstwhile ‘cheap’ necessity. It goes without saying that if one cannot afford the most basic needs of food and clothing, obviously education to him, becomes a fast-fading dream in the far horizon. Aware of this fact,  that his students came from humble backgrounds, Mr. Mwereria opted not to make wearing of uniform mandatory at Muthara High School.

Abraham Maslow realized long time ago that the bottom-most needs must be met before ascending the ever-thinning and sliding ladder of human needs. True to this fact, those who know best attest to the fact that food at Muthara High School back in the day was plenty. So plenty indeed that members of the community could drop by and help themselves to a plateful of ‘githeri’ or ‘muthokoi’ without much ado. Only they had to be on time for the meal. Feeding non-students was never a bother for Mr. Mwereria – in fact, it was his goal and mission. When he sought  a parliamentary seat for the then Tigania Constituency, he was somewhat discouraged by the poor attendance at the campaign rallies, more so in his home turf of Muthara. At one time, in his characteristic generosity, he decided to be throwing a feast by slaughtering a bull for the attendees. Asked why he would do that, Mr. Mwereria said it was in order that people with the best ideas in the community to attend and share their wisdom with others as they pertake of the factuals. A clever way of ensuring that hunger did not bar anyone from deciding his/her own fate by voicing their opinion about the kind of leadership they wanted. Such meetings were participatory and yielded the most genuine proposals to address local problems as opposed to the  imposed alien-ideas manufactured by a select few. Again when he vied for the top seat in the country, presidential, his manifesto turned out to be one of the best having been birthed by this kind of idea sharing instead of hiring some technocrats to sit in a five-star hotel suite to draft it for him as most presidential hopefuls are known to do.

At Muthara High School, parents who could not afford to pay the little school fees for their children were allowed instead to bring such commodities as firewood, maize or beans that were later converted into monetary value and used to cater for the fees. In cases where a parent didn’t have  any of these commodities- as was with a number of cases- they volunteered to work at the school farm which also produced  food for the students. When crops did well and both the school and the parents had a bounty harvest, there was opened a “Community Peasant Bank” where farmers could ‘deposit’ their produce instead of selling them off at throw away prices to the gullible businesspeople who take advantage of them. Later when prices stabilized in the market, with the permission of the farmers, these cereals were sold off and converted into money to settle the fees balances for their children in school.

These options could not be available for everyone of course. What about a student whose parents didn’t produce surplus, but only enough to consume at home? What about those students whose parents were advanced in age not to be able to work in the school farm, or worse still those that had passed on? What about parents who willingly decided not to volunteer to do so, or even ignorantly opted not to be involved –even remotely – in their children’s education? To cater for  them, there was put in place another good fall-back mechanism for them. A student from a humble background would learn for the first three years uninterrupted without being asked to pay a single cent towards school fees, then go into a full year ‘internship program’ at the school. During this year, the  student in internship would work for the school as a cook, watchman, office messager, carpenter, mason, student coach e.t.c. depending on the available positions. All this time he didn’t lose his close connection with other students as well as teachers. These ‘intern students’ were more or less like other students safe for the tasks they performed during the day. In the evenings, however, they would freely mingle with others as they together honed their academic skills in the specially formed  discussion groups. Each discussion group comprised of students from every class and of different learning abilities. This way, students taught fellow students therefore ending up learning together, and better. Of all learning the world over, this has proved to be the best way of learning where students exchange ideas among themselves without the limit or bias of age, time or authority – some say even language. After one year of internship, the students were allowed to ‘go back’ to class and ultimately register and sit for the national examination KCSE, having gained immensely in both experience and learning. One who knows of the 7-4-2-3 system of education in Kenya will quickly see the parallel between this internship and the NYS training that A-level graduates who qualified for university admission had to undergo.

Until recently, with the introduction of parallel degree programs and the licensing of other tens of universities in the country (thanks to the Kibaki government at large) students who never qualified for university admission were forever condemned as failures. The cut-throat competition of 8-4-4 is unfair and ends up punishing those that are from poor backgrounds and or attended ill-equipped schools. To demystify this myth of eternally condemning our own children who do not attain the magic mark of getting admitted to the few available public universities in Kenya, Muthara High School accepted back students who had previously sat their KCSE and missed the magic cut-off point, to take a second shot at it.  Without surprise, these students passed with flying colors and made it to the university, proving that living below the poverty line is not an automatic ticket to scoring below the cut-off point. Most teachers at the school in the beginning were A-level leavers but right now it is former students, qualified teachers, graduate teachers not yet working under TSC, university students etc.

Mr. Mwereria also sought to rehabilitate or rather put into use the adjacent semi-arid Mukuani hill by introducing a goat rearing project that supplemented his source of money. The hill (which separates Muthara from Karama) is full of shrubs and not good for human habitation or crop farming hence its suitability for goat rearing as most of the shrubs growing there  are a delicacy for goats.

As we bemoan our late heroine Prof. Wangari Muta Maathai, another of our icons who was not well feted at home as she was outside, it should not escape noting that these two giants of our own had crossed paths in their endeavor to serve the greater humanity. Their meeting point was when Mr. Mwereria sought the presidential seat with a party whose name Prof. Maathai thought contentious and to some degree infringing on her owns. While Mr.Mwereia’s party was Green African Party, with a maize stalk as its symbol, Prof. Maathai’s was Mazingira Green Party of Kenya. Sources say the two law abiding mortals sought court intervention for justice to be meted. And so it was indeed.

Not to  juxtapose the two, for both are not equals by any measure, but the story of Mr. Mwereria – like that of Prof. Maathai – cannot be written about exhaustively. As fate would have it, this president that Kenya never had, this giant of our own was felled by an illness a couple of years ago. However, the multitude of young men and women who are beneficiaries of his ideas, and who now gracefully dot the country and indeed the globe spotting varied hats and working in various honorable capacities can unequivocally attest attest to the benefits the society has  so joyfully reaped courtesy of Mr. Mwereria. It is through them that the dream still lives on. And now that we are touting planting millions – if not a zillion – tree seedlings in honor of the good Prof. and to continue her noble idea, why don’t we in the same spirit, and in honor of Mr. Mwereria (our local prophet) take and advance one of his noble ideas for the benefit of others? Our Rockefeller and Jomo-Kenyatta foundations will come from among ourselves now. Thinking globally and acting locally, as Wangari would say.  Start something. Call it anything; a foundation if you wish. But ultimately, the most deserving in the society should stand to reap the benefits. And as Mwereria’s campaign slogan read: “Mwilila ni Kanyamba! Ntaichie Nionkerie Nduu!”

                                                                                                               Martin Okariithi

                          Inorakia area iwiite induu ikarea kumenyeerwa no inuunkie area iwiite.