"You have given us back our children" — a chief's quiet thank-you
Chief Mwangi has run his sub-location in the Nakuru hills for nineteen years. He has seen NGOs come and go. He does not give compliments easily — which is why, when he stood up at the barraza last month and removed his hat, the field officers in the back row knew something rare was happening.
The barraza was called for the usual reasons: a land dispute, a missing cow, two boys caught fighting at the market. It ran for three hours under a flame tree on a Thursday afternoon. At the end, before dismissing the crowd, the chief asked for one more minute.
Eleven names
He read out eleven names. Some the crowd recognised; a few they did not. He gave each one a short sentence. Wanjiku, who now teaches Class 4 at the primary school down the road. Kipchoge, a mechanic with his own garage in Bahati. Faith, a nurse at the sub-county hospital. Daniel, who came back to plant 400 trees on the bare hillside above the river.
All eleven had passed through our Nakuru hub as children. Some had been sponsored from age seven. One had been rescued from a forced marriage at fourteen. Two had been part of our first feeding programme cohort in 2014. All eleven, the chief noted, were now adults in his sub-location — paying taxes, raising families, sitting on school committees.
"I have signed many letters for many organisations. I will sign no more for the ones that come for a photograph and leave. But these ones — they did not come to take our children away. They gave us back our children, grown."
— Chief Joseph Mwangi
What he asked for next
He did not ask for more sponsorships. He asked for two things. First, that the alumni who had returned be invited to speak at the next barraza, so the younger children could see what was possible. Second, that the chief's wife be allowed to join the next village savings cooperative, because she had seen what it had done for her neighbours and she was tired of watching.
Both requests were granted. The first alumni barraza is scheduled for May. Mama Mwangi made her first deposit of 200 shillings last Tuesday.
What we took away
Margaret Kariuki, our Nakuru hub manager, drove home in silence. The next morning she pinned the eleven names to the wall above her desk, beside the master enrolment list. The field officers walked past it without commenting. They did not need to. The list is the work. The list is the reason.
Margaret Kariuki
Hub Manager, Nakuru
