6 December update: so far we have raised £1230. We are 83% there! Thanks so much to those of you who have, or have pledge to, donate. Every penny/cent/shilling helps! Emmanuel has started school – I’ll update you on his progress.
Emmanuel was met through a friend. He comes to our house to help Tom practice speaking Swahili, but has taught us both a lot about life in Kenya. He’s told us stories about living in Kibera, the infamous ‘largest slum in Africa’. His favourite is the tale of the three robbers who plundered a grave and drove off with its empty coffin. The police were tipped off and gave chase; two men were shot dead and the third climbed into the empty coffin, praying that if he survived he would devote himself to God. The police looked thorough the coffin’s Perspex paneling and were horrified to see a dead man. While they were deciding what to do, the dead man leaped out of the coffin and ran for his life. The police and onlookers ran, too – in the opposite direction, so terrified were they at his reincarnation. The dead man confessed the next day, was let off by the traumatised police, and is now a popular preacher.
Such tales are not so bizarre to Emmanuel; having lived in Kibera all his life, he understands the desperation of people, the lack of stable employment, and the necessity of struggling by whatever means possible to earn enough to eat. Emmanuel is unrelentingly positive, charming and fun, but he also has high aspirations. He’s currently an unqualified teacher, but Tom and I, along with some members of his church, are paying for him to complete a two year primary education qualification. It’s expensive but it will improve his family’s life dramatically, as he will be on a much better salary. We wanted to write about Emmanuel and see if anyone wanted to join us in helping him.
Emmanuel is 27. His Tanzanian father left him and his siblings when he was young, returning to his homeland and favoured first wife. Emmanuel’s mother – his father’s second wife – raised the children alone, feeding them with the money from sporadic cleaning jobs, but she fell ill. At 16, Emmanuel was forced to drop out of school to look for work, doing anything and everything that brought home a few shillings. He joined a dancing group which entertained at weddings for KSH400 a time (£3); found casual work at a water park, walking the 1 ½ hours each way to save money on the bus fare so as not to dent his KSH250 (£2) a day fee; and rose at 5am some days to sell charcoal for KSH50 (35p). At the end of each day, the most he could hope for was enough money to buy ugali and sukuma wiki for his family’s daily meal.
Emmanuel recounted this time to us in a matter-of-fact tone. He is not bitter or hardened, and nor does he show any regret for the jobs he had to do. Any discouragement was dampened by the thought of his younger brother and the desire to keep him in school where he could not be. And crucially, his faith sustained him, for Christianity plays a huge role in his life. A tall, open-faced gazelle, he bounds into our house with cries of ‘Hallelujah!’ most weekdays. He is heavily involved in his church’s outreach activities, visiting hospitals, schools and other churches to talk to people not just about Christianity, but about other issues such as HIV/AIDS and the dangers of drugs.
Emmanuel told us that his eldest siblings were killed by his father’s first wife, a witch who practiced black magic on them. The eldest died of an eye disease shortly after the wife told his mother she would bury him. The second died after becoming involved with a scarlet woman: one day, their neighbours witnessed smoke in the hut they shared. They forced open the door, put out the fire, and found Emmanuel’s brother bound by his hands, feet and waist to the wall. The girlfriend disappeared and the police refused to get involved; these are not uncommon occurrences in Kenya’s slums.
Emmanuel’s huge positivity, determination and charm led him, a year after leaving school, to a Kenyan working for an NGO. The man heard his story and took him back to school, paying his fees and buying his uniform. This was the start of a small reversal in fortunes, although his inability to earn money meant that his family sometimes ate nothing all day except when provided by neighbours, and forced his mother, not yet recovered from her illness, to seek work again. Emmanuel had to share a pair of shoes with his eldest brother; in the day, he would wear them to school, and in the evening his brother would wear them to his job as a poorly-paid night guard.
Emmanuel finally finished school in 2006 at the age of 21, but was soon back on casual jobs to keep his brother in school. He experienced a small bout of luck again when his former teacher, seeing his passion for teaching, connected him with a school, where he now teaches biology and chemistry. However, with no teaching qualification, he is bound to this job; he would not be able to find another school willing to take him on without a certificate. But his KSH5,000 a month salary (£42) is at least a stable income, and he can afford to cook ugali and sukuma wiki each day.
It’s hard to imagine Emmanuel’s life. Visiting his home in Kibera is a shock. One must climb over open sewage ditches and strewn rubbish and there are children playing about unsupervised among it all. Rent is cheap by our standards, ranging from KSH800 to KSH2000 (£6 – £16) a month, depending on whether it has a corrugated iron roof and cemented walls or is simply a mud hut – but not when you consider that each home is usually one room comprising a bed, two cooking pots and a stool. If you have the money, you can hook up electricity for KSH300 (£2.40) a month; when we visited one evening, the neighbours were watching the scourge of Kenyan TV, a Mexican soap opera. But there is very little stability or incentive to invest in homes beyond this; the Government, which owns all the land in Kibera, doesn’t recognise the slum as a valid settlement, and has the power to destroy homes at any time.
But Emmanuel has lived here his whole life. He says he’s used to the instability, the rubbish, the smell, the overcrowding. He even claims it is better than it was when he was growing up, even though it is more crowded. It is cleaner now; there were no drainage systems to be seen back then. People are more educated: while many are still illiterate, the introduction of free primary education in 2003 has meant that most young people now have at least a basic education, although often of dubious quality. The rise of NGOs, disparaged by so many, has enormously helped those they target; Emmanuel is testament to that, as he was given a second chance at school.
In a country where people have traditionally seen cities only as places of work, owning ‘real’ homes in the rural areas of their tribal community, Emmanuel is one of many young people today who has only ever known the slum. He dreams to own a plot of land where he can build a house for his mother to retire. In the meantime, he has ambitions; if he could become a qualified teacher, he could encourage more lives through education and help slum children go through what he went through, at the same time as supporting his family.
Emmanuel is hardworking and believes that ‘so long as God gives us grace and gives us hands, we can work’. Tom and I hope that we can help him achieve his ambitions, and we’d love it if you could help us help him. The fees are quite expensive, and we also want to give a small amount of money each month to his family to make up for the lost income they would otherwise feel by his absence. We know Emmanuel, and we know it will help his family, a lot –and living in Kenya, where every day you have to walk past someone you could help, it feels like we will have made a positive difference in some small way.
Please email me: reyindia@hotmail.com. Every penny will go direct to him and his family.
Details
We are trying to raise KSH234,500 – around £1800. This is divided into money for the course, and money for his family (to make up for his lost earnings). All money in Kenya Shillings (using a rate of £1= KSH130. It’s currently around 145, but it fluctuates a lot and we want to make sure we’re not short).
1. The Primary Teacher Education Course (PTE) is at the International Teaching and Training Centre in Nairobi. It is a two year course.
Registration fee – 500 (first year only)
Bus maintenance – 600
Medical Fee – 900
Activity Fee – 1,500
Tuition and Boarding – 54,000
Total: 114,500 (57,500 year 1; 57,000 year 2) – or £880
2. We want to give KSH5,000 a month to his family, so they don’t feel his absence financially. This is only £38 a month and you could argue that we should give more, but our aim is not to support Emmanuel’s family; it’s to help Emmanuel support his own family.
Total: 120,000 (60,000 a year) – or £923
We would be grateful to receive money in any form you are able, and as little (or as much!) as you can afford. It could be a lump sum, or monthly installments over the two years. We can pay the College in installments, and it is easy for us to send the money direct to his mobile phone from England. reyindia@hotmail.com
Hey Auralia, I’m glad to see you after a long time. It’s Abdu from Ethiopia. We’ve spent a memorable saterday afternoon in Dire Dawa a couple of years back. I’ll follow your blog now on. I hope all is good at your end.
one of the most important things i came to realize when i lived in kenya was that helping an individual directly is a hell of a lot more effective than donating hundreds of dollars to NGOs and global aid multinationals. i’m a firm believer that change starts with willful, optimistic, resourceful and motivated individuals who understand what changes are needed because they’re living it. that sounds like emmanuel. you won’t just be giving him an opportunity, you’ll be giving a chance to his family, especially his children. good luck emmanuel!
[…] September, I wrote about our friend Emmanuel the school teacher; about his life and his ambitions. We used the opportunity to fundraise so he can complete a two […]