My
Story
The Turkana people of the Republic of Kenya occupy the
drier northern part of the country that is often characterized by low rainfall,
insecurity, droughts & famines. Born in 1992 and brought up in a village in
Turkana County in North-Western Kenya, I began my primary school education in
Lorengelup Primary School, a school in my community, established by the Government
of Kenya in 1984 in a bid to improve the literacy levels in my pastoralist community. My pursuit of education was a challenge as
the available academic institutions were not well equipped with permanent and
decent infrastructure or the teaching personnel. As a result of this, I transferred to Kerio
Primary School, a neighboring school that had better facilities, in the year
2004 as I approached the end of my primary school education. I proceeded to
Lodwar High School for my secondary education in 2005 after successfully
finishing my primary education. It was in Lodwar High School that my eyes were
opened and I got exposed through classroom studies and interactions with
students from the rest of Kenya. While in high school I read stories of people
who saw their people suffer, went through the education system in order to
fight for their rights and finally succeeded.
After my high school, I taught at a primary school in my
village and later in a secondary school located in Kakuma Refugee Camp, the
second largest refugee camp in the Republic of Kenya. For two months in 2009, I
worked as a Community Health Worker in my village, educating the community
about the need to observe hygiene and sanitation as well as carrying out tests
on water samples to confirm the availability or otherwise of cholera-causing virus.
This was after a cholera outbreak in my village swept away a considerable
number of illiterate and poverty-stricken members of my community. I also
worked for a company sub-contracted by Tullow Oil, an oil company that is
currently carrying out oil and gas exploration in my community as a General
Survey Worker. I witnessed the adverse effects the oil and gas exploration was
having on my local community ranging from destruction of community forests and
failure by government and private investors to make the local people part of
the oil exploration process.
I joined Alphax College in Eldoret, Kenya in September
2010 to undertake studies in Information Technology as I was awaiting to join
university and I finished my studies in 2011 and joined University of Nairobi
Law School the same year.
With the experience of working in Turkana with young
people and witnessing first-hand the challenges my pastoralist community goes
through, I felt a challenge to no longer look at past injustices faced by the
people but to step in and make a difference in the community in whichever small
way I could. I felt that I had a heavy burden on my shoulders to be an advocate
of change and development in my community. I wanted to study law in order to
use my legal skills to make a positive impact and give back to the community
that took me to school. Having come from a village where no one had studied
law, legal studies was the extra stepping stone I needed to familiarize myself
with the rest of Kenya and learn the rights of my people. Before joining
university, I had an opportunity to interact with friends from other parts of
Kenya who had studied Law and graduated and I learnt that they used their legal
skills to assist their communities and the people they felt passionate about.
One of my lawyer friends told me that he volunteered his legal services to an
advocacy association in his home village. Another lawyer explained to me how he
donated his legal expertise to advise minority youth on how to overcome
difficulties. Collaborating with other lawyers gave me a better understanding
of how my passion for law could interact with my interest in social justice
issues.
The journey to develop my community and build their capacity
to advocate for their rights began with the formation of Article 43, a
youth-led group in Turkana that advocates for Community Development through
Youth Empowerment and Environmental Conservation in 2012. The group comprised
of thirty three members drawn from within my home village, both male and
female. For three years now, we carry out Tree Planting in Primary and
secondary schools, hospitals and in the community in addition to educating the
community on climate change. We also carry out Environmental Conservation
activities in our schools and organize community cleaning exercises. We have
also carried out a number of Youth Empowerment Summits to enlighten the youth
and the community on their rights as a community, on the concept of Devolution
and on the role of youth in community development generally. We also educate
the community on the need to conserve the environment and to focus on
alternative source of livelihoods other than the destructive charcoal burning
that is a major source of finance in my home village. These community summits
have enabled us to build the capacity of the local community to advocate for a
clean environment especially with the ongoing oil and gas exploration. There is
a massive influx of people from the rest of Kenya to our community with land
grabbing as a priority and the cultural identity of the local community is
facing erosion. Our group also educates the local population on their rights as
a community in the face of oil and gas exploration as provided by Kenyan and
International law.
In 2014, our group wrote proposals and partnered with
Safaricom Foundation, a Kenya-based Charity to implement a Kshs 8.4 Million
Classrooms, Ablution Block and Reading Desks project in Lorengelup Primary
School, where I studied. The school initially used trees and semi-permanent
structures as classrooms, despite having been established in 1984. This project
has transformed education in this community and now the school population has
tripled with pupils coming to undertake their studies in this school from all
over Turkana County. This year, the Ministry of Energy of the Government of
Kenya implemented a Solar Power Electrification Project in the school and the
school is now rated as one of the best equipped primary schools in Turkana
County despite being among the most pathetic just two years ago. Because of
this infrastructural developments that
our group helped put up, Lorengelup Primary School was identified as an
Examination Centre during 2014 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE)
national examination, for the first time in 30 years. Our group intends to
implement more such projects in the near future.
As the Founder and Team Leader of Lorengelup Community
Development Initiative, my experience so far has opened my eyes up to a variety
of challenges in Turkana society and the need to develop the community. The
more I look at my surroundings with a critical eye, the more I realize that our
people are suffering because of their ignorance of their rights. My passion for
equality and social justice has grown because I am determined to use my legal skills
and observations to the benefit of my marginalized community.
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