MSM’s OUR LADY’s AFRICAN FUND VISIT TO KENYA

In 1961, Strathmore College was started in Nairobi by a group of members of Opus Dei and their associates, with the intention of contributing to the development of a soon-to-be independent Kenya. By the mid-80s it was fully established as a school of accountancy and a secondary school, and it was decided to start a primary school. Through friendship with one of the chaplains, Fr Cormac Burke, I was recruited to help the kick-off, and taught there in 1987-1988, before returning to U.K. After 2000, I built up a tiny system of contributing to bursaries for pupils at Strathmore under the MSM banner. By the time I was able to sponsor some children at a primary school and feeding centre – run by nuns – at the edge of a large slum, I had gathered a couple of associates and a widening list of generous benefactors. The basis of our Fund was the exchange of prayer between benefactors and beneficiaries. This continues to be so.

In 2011, I was invited by staff at Strathmore to be at the celebrations for their 50^th anniversary. I decided to go, as I could meet our bursary boys and their families, and visit St Martin’s. I also wanted to meet the boys whom I had taught when they were 6 and 7 years old … now in their early 30s. Well. It was a family celebration, and during the course of the week I able to do most of what I had intended.

I was told how many families could be fed for how many years by the equivalent of the price of a Merc. A lot of Kenyans believe in the emergence of a new, democratic and egalitarian society, but the widespread corruption from the highest in the land to the policemen who will waive a justified fine at the gift of a few shillings must be eliminated. What a big role Christian education has to play if the dream is to come true, and a personal sense of challenge – which seems a characteristic of Kenyan youth … one of my former Strathmore pupils, Kimathi, deliberately chose, for his secondary education, to board at one of the toughest and roughest of Nairobi grammar schools, to train himself to be ready for anything that life might throw at him.

Nor can one miss the fact of Kenya’s religiosity. I attended Mass at 7 a.m. at  the Consolata sanctuary in Westlands on the Monday… a congregation of around 100 sang hymns! Although Kenyans certainly love piety, they meet the hardships of life with an acceptance that we in the North find difficult. Nor is the religious sense limited to Christianity… next to my hostel (run by a charming German nun) was a mosque, and the contribution of the Sikh and Ismaeli communities is a valued part of modern Kenyan history. I noticed a slogan painted on the back of a public minibus which might sum up the Kenyan attitude: ‘I work for a Jewish Carpenter!’ The Kenyan sense of God’s presence, hard work and order, the evident family life certainly suggest the possibility of vocations to the Knights of Our Lady, and Nairobi is becoming a Marian city!

And the Strathmore Project? Strathmore University now has several thousand students and increasing faculties… a study of philosophy is already a requirement for all courses. I was shown another project launched by Strathmore which also impressed me immensely: the Eastlands College of Technology. Eastlands is a deprived district around the railway area linking Nairobi with the coast and with Lake Victoria and it is full of stallholders eeking out a living by selling, mainly, foodstuffs from upcountry. Providing short courses and a qualification for graduates of local schools in business management is going to enable a growing stream of upwardly mobile young people to feed Kenya’s prosperity. Each young graduate is asked to make a regular contribution from per new income to the College to promote the expansion of the system, rather than be hi-jacked into socialism or communism. I think that this project is worth supporting. Our Lady’s African Fund is thus considering taking up a bursary or two.

I met several of the families that our Fund has been supporting, being invited to their homes to share a meal. I was driven through the Kibagare slum to St Martin’s Good News and Feeding Centre, to be met by Sister Leah – the Administrator – with a big smile on her face at the gate. She introduced me to the Headmaster, Mr George Gichuki, and to the Staff and finally to the 10-12 children whom we have been sponsoring, to whom I gave greetings cards from children in the London schools who have raised funds … My host for the visits was Michael Pike, of the Strathmore School academic council. He assured me that Strathmore secondary is widening its doors to boys from a variety of primaries and economic backgrounds. More bursaries are needed. Finally I was able to dine with some of my former pupils … some now married and fathers, with executive jobs: part of the future of this great country!

- Stephen de la Bédoyère, MSM Preceptor of Great Britain, Founder of Our Lady’s African Fund (OLAF)