By Mary Wangare
It is always a joy to give back to people , however it is even more rewarding when you give back to the community that natured you and can identify and share your aspirations and dreams.
Waithera Maruru, from Nyeri county is living the reality of giving back to her community through initiatives aimed at improving the education standards in her village.
Waithera , a trained journalist says the decision to help her community especially in the education sector did not come out naturally but it followed a series of embarrassing national examination results.
” In 2013 the ministry of education released results the national examination results and being a journalist i was able to access the list of schools and while my fellow journalists were happy pointing out the schools they went to with pride, i was forced to lie because my school was amongst the worst performers ” she explained.
Following that incident Waithera vowed never to be embarrassed by her background but rather do something to change the status quo.
” I made up my mind that i have to do better for my community rather than hide and shy away from the reality” she added.
In 2014 she decided to volunteer at the school as a teacher as her way of trying to resolve the poor performance in here primary school.
” I decided to volunteer as a teacher at Ngaini primary school because i wanted to learn firsthand what the problem was and how we as a community can begin to play our part in improving the situation in our school” she narrated.
” I wanted to know why is my school posting very poor result” she added. Waithera understood that to address the issues in her community she need to work with other people because it will take immense resources to change things for the better.
” while working at the school realized i need money and other resource for the work at hand, so what i did was to mobilize the school alumni so we can put out heads together ” said Waithera.
she says since the school alumni started working together to improve the performance at the school. They have registered tremendous progress since the results are improving. Through the alumni we have been able to organize mentoring seminars at the school and showed the pupils that they can aspire for much more. We have also supported the children with revision material hence improving the academic performance.
” Our school has now managed to take its pupils to some best national schools in the country like Alliance girls high school, Nyeri boys high school and Gadu girls among others and we are absolutely proud” noted waithera.
For Waithera the passion to change the community does not stop with education. during this Covid- 19 pandemic she has also collaborated with other well wishers and she has been able to play her part in alleviating the impact of Covid 19 among the people especially the less fortunate.
” During this pandemic that is affect the world and Kenya in particular, mobilized well wishers and pulled together resources. we visited Majego slum in Nyeri county and distributed tippy taps to help in hand washing, we also distributed food to households” she pointed out.
” we also helped some families start kitchen gardens, where we helped kids who at home since schools are closed set up sack gardens where they can plant veggies like Kales ” she added
she also noted that they have managed to distribute revision material to class eight candidates to enable them continue with revision even as schools remain closed due to the ongoing corona virus pandemic.
” I am so happy to note that together with other well wishers we have developed a revision booklet that we have distributed to a total of 3700 candidates in Nyeri county” she pointed
Political Aspirations
Following years of community activism Waithera says time to make even bigger impact has come. she says come 2022 general elections she will vie for the Nyeri county Woman representative seat.
” after years of volunteering and social activism i have come to the realization that some of the community problems that we face can be addressed through enactment of laws that spur development in different sectors” she noted.
” I want to leave a mark by helping to formulate laws that will promote education, agriculture and gender equity among other issues that i am passionate about. The best way to do that is by getting elected into parliament” waithera explained.
she tells fellow youths to envision the society they want to live in and then take positive action towards the realization of that world.
”nothing will change until you change it, be the change you want to see in the world” she pointed.
kigomary 