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FROM THE STREETS TO BEING AN EXEMPLARY MODEL…

Apr 17, 2014 admin Arise of Nyeri Woman, Featured, Features 0

The next time you are served an uncouth and obviously undeserving treatment, from across the street by any of the streets families, at the spur of the moment drama, don’t vent your disdain look or seething anger or perhaps start whimpering to yourself of their awkward, unpolished habit. Instead, contribute into the solution extraction by evaluating why the ‘street urchins’ as they are dubbed could be a discipline problem. Could the negative vibration they pick and which is a working defensive weapon for them be as a result of the environmental pressure they are subjected?

According to a research that has been carried out by UNICEF, there are approximately 100 million street children world wide and the number is constantly growing. Children of a very tender age are vulnerable to street life including those who have been neglected by their families, those who have ran away from their homes and those sent to urban cities because of poverty.

Nanjala (not her real identity) may seem a lady next door. Her strong self image and a perfect combination of willowy, wholesome upright gait, an extreme trim figure and her smile that hardly runs out of stock possibly could land her a promising successful modeling career. At the age of 20, Nanjala is all set to courageously step into the next phase of her life.

It is on a Thursday mid morning and as usual it is a working hour. A pile of books lay neat on the shelf in the small yet lofty glass walled office library. Nanjala could just be an emissary of the newly established Azali Club whose mission is to instill a reading culture among Kenyans. Her zeal and passion is all evident as she aggressively markets her services to the streaming in clients. Earlier that morning, Nanjala had sought an enquiry from one of the high schools around Nyeri town. Her determination to get a high school certificate and her unquenchable thirst for an education is a factor that would make her shed the shame about her age and go back and get that coveted prize, AN EDUCATION! Why go back to high school at such an age?

Nanjala is a nasty product of an abusive and a tough upbringing and telling about her life history would be tantamount to provoking a festering wound. Behind that angelic look lay a courageous young woman who has taken a painful path of a life history. At the time of the interview she puts to rest all her activities and for a while begins to dig deep into her story sifting through each entangled moment as it flashes unto the screen of her mind with freshness and clarity as though it happened to her all over again.

Though still in the recovery and cleansing process of her mind all ascribed to the bitter past, according to her everything instantly changed from bad to worse ever since the completion of the divorce process of her then successful business entrepreneurial parents. Now crammed up with a heavy responsibility of providing to her young ones who had been born in a rapid succession after her refusal to split the three children to her already divorced husband,Nanjala ‘s mother began to work as a bar attendant in one of Nairobi’s outskirts’ Kayole. Parent could be in fit of negligence, a path that Nanjala‘s mother took while still serving as a bar attendant all thanks to her sister who introduced her to alcohol and rapidly converted her into a daily drinking officer. Her daily intoxicated state sow a whole lot of problems to Nanjala and her siblings.

First, her first born twin brothers who precede her in the order of birth discontinued with their education only to be introduced to illegal drugs intake in one of the jobless corner streets in umoja. Now in a very derelict condition, with brothers who camped within the Nairobi streets and a mother who had no any sense of care now abdicated her roles and delegated her motherly duties to the tender aged and barely ten year old Nanjala. ‘Sometimes mum would come with food and I used to do the cooking, although most of the time I begged money for food in order to feed the rest of my four siblings whom we don’t even share the same biological father’, says Nanjala. It is there in that I learnt that after the divorce of her parents Nanjala’s mother met a man at her place of work that would later sire her other four children. Among other nasty experiences like, Nanjala ‘s mother improvising their small house for a bar and Nanjala defilement, a torturous predicament that she attributes to her mother one of the worst encounter was when she was twelve years. ‘One evening mum came home drunk to the stupor, only to discover that there was no food .In no moment her anger swelled and rose like geyser, i was impetuously given a flogging that saw me leave home at a very dusk hour ‘, says Nanjala. After her escape from home, she went to her friend and classmate where they planned never to go back to school while they were in their fifth year in primary school. Instead, they contemplated on joining the feared street gang bandwagon in Umoja.

As they say, man’s tragedy becomes God’s strategy, a strategy that came in handy for Nanjala at that tempestuous moment! A Netherland couple who happened to be in the country, bumped unto the two girls who were making their way to a hopeless nock and enquired of them of who would love to join school, an enquiry that Nanjala loved. She was later to enroll in a private school in Ruai in 2008 which in turn saw her score an impressive 318 marks out of the possible 500.Later, she was admitted to Machakos Girls High School where she would pursue with her high school education until form two when a letter came through for her while at a children’s home in Githurai over the school holiday. The content in the letter was way too a blow to her smooth education life. Her Dutch sponsors were no more therefore discontinuing with their noble course. This unfortunate experience just triggered a sequence of other misfortunes in Nanjala’s life among them slipping back into her old lifestyle where she coped in the streets for three weeks. All in all, she describes the lifestyle in the street as PATHETIC.

She always thank God for the heaven sent ‘Made in the streets organization’ an organization that rescues street children and see them through tertiary related institutions. In 2011, Nanjala and her twin brothers were among the influx of street children rehabilitated and taken to Kangundo where Nanjala would later pursue a 2year course in fashion and design until 2013 where she completed and graduated. To add the icing on the cake, the organization further extended its kindness and helped the graduates get Kenyan national identity cards and further on spoilt them for choice by paying their three month rent in their places of choice. Nanjala was to later reside in Mwiki where yet another bridge of connection took places, there she met two social workers who ran a children’s’ home. It was also in this year that Azali book club was born.

Though the club is still new and gaining popularity by the day, Catherine sores high as she anticipate for the future to being the best future mum ever and a tour guide after the completion of her education. Through prayers and vocalizing her problems to the people she trusts she is well able to relieve herself from the burdensome troubles. Asked whether she would love to meet her father, she boldly says she would love to in order to rekindle the long lost relation ship with his long distanced father who now works in South Africa. However, she is happy about the progress turn around and Christian conversion and born again mother although still grappling with the challenge of providing and educating her ever demanding children. She advices young women to put their trust in God and always make the right decisions and stand firm and true to them. Nanjala looks up to Julie Gichuru and Catherine Kasavuli, two successful figures who have had blossoming TV career as news anchors for a leading local T.V station.

Beside actively getting involved with teaching traditional cultural dances to other kids who have gone through the same path and rescued from the streets, now she is geared up to go back to high school and once she is done she would love to pursue tour guide related course and there after land a job as well as runs a children’s home and a fashion and design an inspiration all drawn from her past experiences.

As we mark the fourth year of the international day for the street children since it’s inception in 2011,let it not be just a day where we ritually observe it, instead let it be a day where we add value to these kids’ life.

By Hannah Wangechi.

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