Photo:�Julius Mwelu/IRIN

NAIROBI, 30 July 2010 (IRIN) – Less than three years after a closely fought presidential election plunged Kenya into widespread violence and displaced thousands, the country is bracing itself for another crucial and equally divisive ballot, this time on a new constitution.

“There is sufficient justification for people to be afraid, mainly because of hate messages and leaflets asking some communities to leave certain areas,” said Ozonnia Ojielo, senior peace and development adviser at the UN Development Programme in Kenya. “There are also political actors using innuendoes.”

The referendum is due on 4 August, and campaigns in favour (represented by the colour green) and against (red) the new political dispensation are in full gear. Observers and the Uwiano Platform for Peace, a joint initiative of the government and civil society, believe the potential for violence exists.

Uwiano has set up a free SMS service (6397) to monitor the situation and has received more than 4,000 messages. Many of these reported violent incidents, hate speech and various activities that threaten the peace.

Key facts
	Referendum on new constitution agreed during the Serena coalition talks following 2007/2008 election debacle
	Referendum date is 4 August, result expected on 6 August
	Nearly 12.5 million voters have registered
	�Yes� side uses the colour green; “No� camp is red
	Some 5,605 prisoners have been registered to vote

“Kenya has had a bad past where people stopped trusting each other because of violence whenever we have had an electoral process,” said Stephen Kileme, programme administrator for Peacenet, a national umbrella organization of NGOs, CBOs, religious organizations and individuals active in peace-building and conflict resolution. “It is the history, people are afraid of the past.”

Peacenet has identified 29 �hot spots�, mainly in Rift Valley and Western provinces. “Reports from some of these areas indicate that some communities are being threatened,” Kileme told IRIN on 28 July. “Some people are being told to �leave in peace or leave in pieces�. We are not taking anything for granted and have alerted the relevant authorities.”

Some people have already abandoned their homes. In Western Province, the police arrested six people on suspicion of distributing threatening leaflets. An extra 15,000 policemen are being sent to Rift Valley Province.

“The possible insecurity flashpoints have been profiled and adequate measures taken to prevent any possible breakdown in law and order,” Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere told reporters in Nairobi on 26 July. “We shall be vigilant to protect the democratic rights of all persons to campaign for their opinions.”

There is reason to worry, say observers. In June, explosives went off at a �No� rally in Nairobi while some MPs, including a cabinet minister, were arraigned in court for hate speech. On 20 July, a group of youths in Kitui attacked the �Red� team and six people were injured. Other incidents included a 21 July standoff in Narok District, the 25 July attempt to pelt a helicopter carrying a minister in Bungoma District and the 26 July theft of computers from the �Red� offices.

Photo:�Jerry Riley/IRIN

Children at a church ground in Eldoret that was temporarily turned into an IDP camp (file photo)

Past violence

The current fears are rooted in the violence that rocked the country after elections in 2007. More than 300,000 people were displaced while 1,100 died, many at the hands of police. Since then, tens of thousands of displaced Kenyans remain in squalid conditions in 19 camps, according to the Ministry of State for Special Programmes.

The Mawingo camp in Nyahururu, Rift Valley Province, is the most congested, with more than 3,000 households. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FewsNET), most of about 50,000 of those still living in the camps cannot support themselves.

“Apart from 2002, past political processes in 1992, 1997, 2005 and 2007 [all election years, except 2005, when voters rejected another draft constitution] were highly contested and violent,” Ojielo told IRIN. “In 2005, the country was polarized into two camps, which easily led to violence and destruction.”

Isaack Otieno, head of the corruption and governance programme at the Institute of Security Studies, Cape Town, argues that the 2007-2008 election chaos pushed Kenya to the brink. “The country is yet to fully heal from the effects of that bungled election,” he noted. “Perpetrators of the violence are yet to face justice. Survivors are yet to heal fully.”

Authorities, however, are determined to ensure a successful vote. Speaking in Nairobi on 27 July, Interim Independent Electoral Commission chairman Issack Hassan said: “It appears the political class has not learnt the lessons of the 2007 election mayhem. We cannot afford to repeat what happened in 2008. We should conduct ourselves responsibly. The campaigns have become an industry of insults.”

Some people are being told to �leave in peace or leave in pieces�. We have alerted the relevant authorities

According to Ojielo, the stakes are too high this time. “There is a history that the state and the people are trying to overcome,” he said. “Unlike 2007 when surprise was a factor, this time the government is saying, let us learn lessons, because delivering a new constitution was a political commitment by the government during the Serena process [named after the Nairobi hotel where talks took place, the negotiations ended the violence and led to the establishment of a coalition government].�

The issues

Supporters, led by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, say the new constitution secures land ownership, devolves power and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, religion or ethnic group.

Opponents say it will take away people’s land, entrenches Khadi (Muslim) courts, and allows abortion and same-sex marriages. This group is led by the Protestant and Catholic churches and includes some cabinet ministers, such as High Education Minister William Ruto, as well as retired president Daniel Arap Moi.

“The new constitution is about the greater national interest,” Kibaki told The Nation newspaper on 25 July. “[It] offers Kenya a chance and a big step to greater stability, economic opportunity and social justice.”

Across the country, voters are warming up. In Isiolo, Samburu, Marsabit and Meru East Districts, the Waso Peace Caravan campaign spearheaded by professional, local and civil society leaders has in the past month conducted peace rallies in trading centres, fields, livestock markets and watering points.

Contentious issues
	The proposal to set up a national commission to manage public land
	Recognition of Kadhi (Muslim) courts
	Termination of pregnancy if the mother�s life is in danger
	Non-discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, ethnic group, disability, colour, etc
	The recall of �non-performing� MPs

“We are agents of peace, our team is spreading the gospel of peace [to] prevent any possible division which might be caused by some forces,” coordinator Peter Kalapata said. “Some communities… were made to believe they will lose their grazing land. We have managed to correct that misleading report. Some were afraid they would be oppressed after the referendum. It is possible to incite such groups to use violence [but] our campaign has made that impossible.”

An attempt to pass a new constitution in 2005 failed when 57 percent of Kenyans voted against the draft, with 43 percent supporting it. This time, the referendum has attracted wide national and international interest.

US President Barack Obama described it as “a singular opportunity to put Kenyan governance on a more solid footing that can move beyond ethnic violence, beyond corruption [and] move the country towards a path of economic prosperity”.

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SOUTH AFRICA: Child deaths stubbornly high

Photo:�Guy Oliver/IRIN

JOHANNESBURG, 27 July 2010 (PlusNews) – The race to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015 is more than halfway run, but new reports say South Africa is unlikely to reduce its burden of deaths in children under five in time to cross the finish line.

A�report by Countdown to 2015, an international group monitoring maternal and child health, has singled out South Africa as one of the countries that has made almost no progress in the last decade in bringing down deaths among children under the age of five.

Although infant deaths have declined by 20 percent since 2001, they remain high, with 47 out of every 1,000 babies dying before they are one year old.

In its latest report the group said that if South Africa is to meet�MDG 4 � a two-thirds drop in under-five mortality by 2015 – it would have to almost halve deaths among children in the next five years. So far, child deaths have declined by less than one percent annually, with 46 percent caused by AIDS-related illnesses.

Recent estimates by�Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), a government agency, reveal that 43 percent of all deaths are AIDS-related. The country has an HIV prevalence of about 18 percent, and has long struggled with high maternal and child mortality.

Stats SA, which has increasingly included HIV figures as part of its general population monitoring, also estimated that 410,000 South Africans would be newly infected with HIV in 2010, and that 10 percent of them would be children.

Former South African health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang instituted�audits into maternal and newborn infant deaths at public health facilities, a move the Countdown report lauded as helping to provide national health departments with the information they need to address�specific problems.

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ZIMBABWE: Low breastfeeding rates threaten PMTCT efforts

Photo:�David Morton/IRIN

HARARE, 30 July 2010 (PlusNews) – Health and nutrition experts in Zimbabwe are worried that one of the lowest exclusive breastfeeding rates in the region could have a negative impact on the country’s prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programme.

Just six percent of mothers exclusively breastfeed their child for the first six months, according to the recentZimbabwe National Nutrition Survey carried out by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), with the Zimbabwe Food and Nutrition Council, and other partners.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that infants born to HIV-positive women be exclusivelybreastfed for the first six months, which not only helps safeguard their nutritional status but also significantly reduces their chances of contracting HIV.

Studies in South Africa have shown that babies born to HIV-positive women who are fed solids as well as their mother’s milk are almost 11 times more likely to contact HIV than those who are exclusively breastfed.

In keeping with the WHO guidelines, HIV-positive mothers in Zimbabwe are encouraged to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months.

Although Zimbabwean national health surveys in 2005 and 2009 put the figure for exclusively breastfeeding at closer to 25 percent, UNICEF spokesperson Tsitsi Singizi said the nutrition survey used a different and more accurate methodology.

It also found that at least one-third of Zimbabwean children under the age of five were malnourished, with around 12,000 at risk of dying from poor nutrition. The survey associated these widespread nutritional problems in children with the low rate of exclusive breastfeeding.

“The findings of the survey are very disturbing because we know that when HIV-positive mothers practice mixed feeding this greatly increases the risk of them passing on HIV to their babies,” Singizi told�IRIN/PlusNews.

The latest WHO recommendations also recommend that all HIV-positive pregnant women begin antiretroviral (ARV) treatment at 14 weeks of pregnancy and continue until they stop breastfeeding, but finding resources for implementing this are unlikely in Zimbabwe’s cash-strapped public health sector.

The PMTCT programme is also struggling with low uptake of antenatal services – over 93 percent of pregnant women attend clinics, but less than half of those requiring PMTCT services access them – an enormous missed opportunity, UNICEF noted. The low numbers of women practicing exclusive breastfeeding could further jeopardize the programme.

Dr Mduduzi Mbuya, a research scientist with�Zvitambo, a research organization working to improve HIV services for women and children, said although women were informed of the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding during antenatal clinic visits, they often received conflicting advice on mixed feeding from decision-makers at home, such as mothers-in-law, aunts and fathers.

“We know that nursing mothers in�Zimbabwe are introducing other foods too early – as early as one month, against the recommended six months,” he said. “We also know that 10 percent of all under-five mortality is attributable to not exclusively breastfeeding in the first six months of life, and it is the reason why we see high levels of malnutrition, stunting and underweight in children.”

Studies by Zvitambo on infant feeding and child nutrition helped inform the Zimbabwe National Nutrition Survey, which also found that some women were unable to exclusively breastfeed due to their own low nutritional status.

Mbuya said if children had already fallen through the cracks of the�PMTCT programme, not being exclusively breastfed would further lower their chances of�survival. HIV-positive infants are more susceptible to malnutrition, placing them at higher risk from life-threatening opportunistic infections.

“Our studies at Zvitambo showed that mixed feeding before three months … results in 50 percent more sick clinic visits in the first six months of life,” he told IRIN/PlusNews. “This is the reason why we have�high child mortality rates in Zimbabwe.”

Dr Gerald Gwinji, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, said government was disturbed by the poor breastfeeding rates and called on partners to help government expand education about the benefits of breastfeeding.

“I call upon all stakeholders to work hard to ensure that rates of exclusive breastfeeding are increased,” he said.

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AFRICA: Addressing the role of religion in HIV response

Photo:�Am�ncio Miguel/PlusNews

NAIROBI, 30 July 2010 (PlusNews) – At a church compound in Nairobi’s Mathare slum, women and their children line up for food rations. Among them is Zipporah Mueni, an HIV-positive mother of five.

“I have come here to receive food which I will share with my children,” said Mueni, whose husband was killed during the post-election violence that followed Kenya’s 2007 presidential election. “My church is like my husband now.”

The church also runs a health programme that provides Mueni and many others in her community with antiretroviral (ARV) treatment.

“This is a slum and everybody here is poor, but we decided that there were some who were not only poor but also widowed or living with HIV,” William Aketch, pastor at the Free Pentecostal Fellowship Church in Mathare, told IRIN/PlusNews. “We designed a programme with members of the church to bring whatever little they can get every Sunday in terms of food or things like soap to share with such people and it has been helpful.”

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) provide an estimated 30-70 percent of healthcare in Africa, says the health NGO,�The Capacity Project.

Close to the community

“Faith-based organizations already have a rapport and trust with the local community to quickly respond to and access populations of humanitarian concern; [they are] able to use their networks to quickly pass messages and track those in need,” said Rena Geibel, co-author of a recent�studyof faith-based NGOs working in emergencies by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a UK-based think-tank.

How is a woman who gets HIV because she has been gang-raped immoral?

Other humanitarian actors often ignore FBOs in the HIV response, despite their positions of trust in many communities, which is a costly mistake, says Fiona Perry, co-author of the ODI study and global HIV/AIDS adviser for World Vision, an FBO.

The study found it was crucial for humanitarian workers to understand the role of FBOs in providing key services and to work with them to help maximise their HIV response.

Proceed with caution

However, in some cases, churches polarize communities by supporting one side in a conflict and only assisting people from certain ethnic groups.

In addition, ideological beliefs can interfere with the HIV response. “When you look at the church community, there is an over-emphasis on morality; this makes many people who are HIV-positive unwilling to come forward because they believe that it makes them appear immoral,” said Aketch.

“What happens in situations of conflict, for example where women and children are raped, should be a starting point for changing people’s – especially church leadership�s – beliefs that HIV goes to those who are immoral,” he added. “How is a woman who gets HIV because she has been gang-raped immoral?”

A recent�article from the reproductive health information website, RH Reality Check, noted that international and local churches had been central in pushing Uganda’s controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill (2009), which is regarded as undermining the fight against HIV among men who have sex with men, a high-risk group.

In addition, the ODI study noted reports from Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo of religious leaders “encouraging members to stop taking ARVs to allow God to heal them”.
“[Challenges that faith-based communities face in fighting HIV] have been well documented and include issues such as providing partial information on HIV prevention – not discussing condoms for example, [and] avoiding key drivers of the HIV epidemic such as addressing gender and gender-based violence,” Geibel said. “People… will tell you that a pastor cannot stand on the pulpit and hold both a condom and a Bible.”

Training religious leaders

“There is a need to make church leaders learn… that people are not in control of their morality, for example in conflict; they need to know why women and girls engage in survival sex,” she added. “This way, they will be able to address HIV in the different contexts.”

Aketch noted that religious leaders should be trained in HIV counselling and in dealing with the youth, with whom they were sometimes out of touch.

The ODI study recommended that FBOs be mobilized to address stigma, harmful cultural practices and sexual violence and to help ensure the provision of HIV services to all members of the community.

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Photo:�Koffi Samuel/IRIN

ABIDJAN, 30 July 2010 (IRIN) – Ivorian health officials are vaccinating people against�yellow fever in Abidjan, the commercial capital, and two other major cities, after the disease killed two people and struck nine others in recent weeks.

During the same period,�dengue fever � for which there is no vaccine � killed one person, and there have been 10 more confirmed cases, according to the Ministry of Public Health and Hygiene.

Yellow fever and dengue fever, both viral illnesses transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, have struck communities in Abidjan, Grand Bassam and Bouak�, said Health Minister Eug�ne Aou�l� Aka.

“We are working to eliminate mosquitoes in the affected zones,” he told reporters on 29 July. “We must contain the problem as quickly as possible – we’re in the rainy season when these diseases spread rapidly.”

The illnesses commonly occur during the rainy season, when mosquitoes multiply, but poor hygiene is the culprit, an infectious disease expert in Abidjan told IRIN.
“If we are seeing these epidemics, it is because people are not practicing proper hygiene,” said Attoh Tour� of the National Public Hygiene Institute. He said health authorities have not made prevention campaigns a priority.

There is no cure for yellow fever and vaccination is the single most important prevention measure, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The disease kills about 50 percent of those who fall ill, mostly due to lack of treatment for associated fever and dehydration, WHO says.

WHO notes that dengue fever can result in a potentially lethal complication called dengue haemorrhagic fever, and that the number of cases has risen dramatically in recent decades; as of March 2009 some 2.5 billion people�� two-fifths of the world’s population ��were at risk.

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Photo:�iThemba Lethu

KAMPALA/JOHANNESBURG, 28 July 2010 (IRIN) – Members of the African Union (AU) reaffirmed at the end of their meeting on 27 July in Kampala, Uganda, that they would strive to spend 15 percent of their national budgets on health, but at the end of the day it is about how “effectively and efficiently” you spend the money, not about how much.

The promise to spend 15 percent on health was made in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2001, but health experts like Chikezie Anyanwu, Africa Advocacy Advisor to Save the Children, which works to promote children’s rights, were left wondering whether the percentages actually made a difference.

Countries could spend more than 15 percent and still show no real reduction in the deaths of children younger than five, or among women during or after childbirth, as specified in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the UN.

Rwanda, Liberia and Tanzania are the only three African countries devoting more than 15 percent of their national spending on health, said Anyanwu, citing a 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) report, based on data from 2007. “But they have made insufficient progress in meeting MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] four and five [reducing maternal and child mortality].”

In South Africa, one of the most developed and richest countries in the continent, the infant mortality rate has escalated and the country will probably not achieve the MDG target by the deadline of 2015.

An under-five mortality rate of 67 per 1,000 live births put South Africa at 141 out of 193 countries; in 1990 the rate was 56 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). HIV/AIDS is cited as the leading cause of death among children in South Africa.

Rwanda, Liberia and Tanzania are the only three African countries devoting more than 15 percent of their national spending on health…But they have made insufficient progress in meeting MDGs

Mortality audits by the government’s Child Healthcare Problem Identification Programme indicated that more than 60 percent of children who died in hospital between 2005 and 2007 were underweight, and according to the most recent national food consumption survey in 2005 nearly one in five children was stunted or chronically malnourished.

Yet Malawi, poorly resourced and with a high HIV prevalence rate, is on track for achieving its MDG targets, but since 2007 it has pushed its spending on health beyond 15 percent, said Health Minister Prof Moses Chirambo.

Malawi is now one of only 10 African nations that could meet MDG 4 � reducing child deaths by two-thirds of the 1990 levels by 2015 – according to an�African Scorecardprepared by Save the Children, using WHO and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) data.

The case of South Africa

“In 2006, the South African government spent seven times more money on health than Malawi, and 17 times more than Madagascar � two countries that have reduced child mortality by more than one-third between 1990 and 2008,” said an article written jointly by Prof David Sanders of the University of the Western Cape, Debbie Bradshaw of the South African Medical Research Council, and Ngashi Ngongo of UNICEF.

“South Africa is one of 12 countries going backwards on reducing infant mortality,” said Sanders. The other 12 countries include Zimbabwe Botswana, Kenya and Sierra Leone.
The article was among several in the latest edition ofSouth African Child Gauge 2009/10, an annual snapshot of the status of South Africa’s children published by the University of Cape Town (UCT), which took critical stock of spending on child health.

Malawi and Madagascar started with a mortality baseline even more abysmal than South Africa’s. Eight percent of South Africa’s gross domestic product is spent on health, but about five percent of that is spent by the private sector; 60 percent of the remaining roughly three percent that goes to the public sector is spent on personnel, Sanders told IRIN.

HIV was a major cause of death in South Africa, accounting for between 35 and 40 percent children younger than five, but other diseases such as diarrhoea also chalked up heavy casualties.

Sanders and his co-authors cited recent analyses implicating South Africa’s high HIV prevalence of about 18 percent in its poor health performance, and mother-to-child transmission in high morbidity and mortality among infants and young children.

There are lessons that Malawi, with an HIV prevalence of 14 percent, extreme shortages of paediatricians, doctors and midwives, can offer South Africa and other countries, said Sanders.

It has focused on improving community-based health services and recruiting health surveillance assistants to administer antiretroviral drugs, supervise the directly observed treatment short course (DOTS) for TB, and contribute to maternal, newborn and child healthcare, which includes paying postnatal visits, an often critical service.

Malawi has also prioritized spending on nutrition – a sector run by the Malawian president himself – as a key preventive action to ensure that children’s and women’s immune systems are not compromised.

The South African government should ensure that quality foods like vegetables, fruits and good animal protein sources were cheaper than foods with poor nutritional value, said Sanders.

In another article Michael Hendricks of UCT and Lesley Bourne of the Medical Research Council said 80 percent of households could not afford an average nutritionally adequate food basket.

“But this calls for addressing broader issues, such alleviating poverty and ensuring people have access to good living environments, with water and well ventilated homes,” said Sanders.

In 2008, 64 percent of children lived in poor households, said Hendricks and Bourne, who called for a multi-sectoral approach to tackling malnutrition by using several ministries, such as health, education, agriculture and social development.

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Photo:�Bill Sta. Clara/IRRI

JOHANNESBURG, 30 July 2010 (IRIN) – Floods have got bigger, droughts more intense and threats posed by waterborne diseases a bit too much to handle for poor countries trying to use their limited resources to adapt to a moodier climate.

“Money isn’t everything,” Alastair Morrison, of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), wrote in thelatest editionof the think-tank’s quarterly journal.

“Many of the most effective water-related adaptation measures are free,” noted Morrison, who is�the UN Development Programme Water Governance Facility Project Manager at SIWI.

Here is a list, based on some of Morrison’s suggestions and community-based�adaptation measures compiled by the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development.

Floods

1. The conventional response is to build levees and walls, and in many instances this was a “practical solution”, Morrison said. If you don’t have the money, you could provide hazard warnings and escape routes or shelters. In a community-based approach in the Philippines, communities learnt how to draw maps to plot the most flood-prone areas and vulnerable communities. These were the first to be warned and evacuated when threatened.
2. Rotate buildings when they are being erected so that a corner points into the flood flow and water is diverted around the structure.

3. Raise buildings on stilts or earth mounds. This is a response rooted in traditional knowledge, Morrison pointed out. “Most houses in south-east Asia used to be raised on stilts, allowing floodwater to pass safely underneath.”

4. Drawing up restrictions doesn’t cost money; impose zoning restrictions and enforce them. “Inappropriate developments � those that block drainage runs, pollute watercourses, and increase rainfall runoff and downstream flooding � must be stopped,” Morrison urged.

5. Press ahead with policy on improving land ownership. “Poor communities are forced to live in dangerous floodplains, on riverbanks and in ravines,” Morrison said. “This is not due to a lack of overall land availability � population densities are still relatively low � but because powerful elites own most of the safe and productive areas.”

Water shortages, water- and mosquito-borne diseases (malaria, dengue and yellow fever)

1. Harvest rainwater, as many NGOs and development workers have suggested.

2. Get communities to maintain their sources of water, whether a well or a hand-pump.

3. Instead of looking for costly drainage options to keep diseases like malaria at bay, get communities to dig trenches and build reservoirs to store flood water.

Landslides

1. If you don’t have a budget for concrete retaining walls, plant vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides), a non-invasive Indian clump grass cultivated for centuries for essential oil. The roots of the grass and its dense undergrowth hold the soil in place, according to the�Vetiver Network international.

But, for all risks it would make sense to have a plan to reduce the chance of a disaster, which, of course, costs nothing.

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Student mother of six has hands full

By Vincent Mabatuk

The task of motherhood, acclaimed the world over on the International Mother�s Day, on Sunday, reflects a wholesome meaning from the life a humble, schoolgirl-cum-mother of six.

Rose Masama, 30, is a mother of six, four of them in primary school, while she is a Form One student herself.

Rose Masama walks two of her children to school, carrying the last-born who remains at home.

She prepares herself for school. [PHOTOS: BONIFACE THUKU/STANDARD]

This interview, done in her house Monday morning as she readied both herself and her children for school, was an eyeful picture of what a handful this mother-student has on her hands.

The student of Kipsyenan Secondary School in Mogotio District has become the talking point of her neighbours in Mogotio town who see her every morning escort her children to Mogotio Primary school before she proceeds to her own.

She had a long break in between finishing Standard Eight in 1992 and joining Form One this year, during which time she got married and had six children.

Masama says after eight years of marriage, she had a desire to return to school and did so this year.

But it has not been easy for her. She has had to weather many a storm, she says, including ridicule from the community for rubbing shoulders with classmates young enough to be her children.

Her first-born child, a boy, is in Standard Seven in a Nairobi school where he lives with a relative and Masama says mother and son form a good study pair during school holidays.

Masama sat for her Certificate of Primary Education in 1992 then she was married soon after, even before results were out.

She scored 300 marks out of the possible 700 and was selected to join Athenai Secondary School which she never did.

Her first husband died after a few years, leaving her two children. She was later married to matatu driver Simon Kipkemoi with whom she has four more children. The family rents a one-bedroom house in the outskirts of Mogotio town.

“It is always a busy day for me. My husband leaves the house before dawn and I have to prepare the children early for school then myself,” she says with a chuckle as she dresses the three children fast without looking up. Her husband had already left when The Standard team arrived.

Preparing children

After preparing the children, she walks them to school leaving the smaller two with a househelp. She then take a matatu, and pays Sh20 one way, to school.

In the evening when she returns from school, Masama turns into a vegetable vendor outside her house, which she says helps supplement her husband�s income.

The Form One student says her decision to go back to school was inspired by the late Kimani Maruge, who died of cancer last year. He was the oldest pupil in the world when he took advantage of the free primary education programme introduced in 2003 to go school.

She says women who have excelled in various fields also inspired her to seriously think about going back to school.

“It was hard at the beginning but I am now used, am doing well in class,” she said. Speaking at Kipsyenan Secondary School, her principal Davy Bowen said Masama was a hardworking and determined student.

Impressive student

Her class teacher, Magdalene Kibet said one cannot tell the task of motherhood Masama has at home, given that she was an impressive student.

Marama, a born-again Christian, says she dreams of one day becoming a medical doctor and she realised there is only one way to that career.

“I felt embarrassed being illiterate. I had to go to school to learn to read and write for a great future,” she says.

At times, she said, she gets worn-out after a long day in school then back home where she has to cook for her husband and children.

“I had to get used to sleeping after midnight in order to complete my work and homework, and don�t forget I�m a married woman” she says, laughing.

She wakes up at 4am alongside her husband. It will not be until about 6.45am when she is ready to leave the house.

source.standard.ke