Books changed my life. Too many Kenyan children lack access to them.
Every student should have the educational resources they need to succeed
This is the first story in the Personal Politics Kenya series. For more about this new cohort, read the introduction by project director Jackline Wambua.
At first, my strict African mum was mad at me. I had come back home late from school. But she quickly understood when I explained that I was late because I needed to share a textbook with other students. My mom had also attended a public school that lacked enough resources.
I am just one of the many children in Kenya who go through public school systems that lack adequate reading materials. Other children aren’t even in school. As of 2020, over one million children between the ages of six and 13 years old were recorded to be out of school. And this number rises every year, depriving children of their right to a good education and Kenya of its future leaders.
Many students have other obligations that leave them little time to study. A nine-year-old living in the slums of Mathare in Kenya, whose parents work from dawn to dusk, is expected to do house chores after school. In places with water shortages, the child will have to wait for hours or walk long distances to source water for their household. And yet the child is also expected to finish homework before going to bed.
Thus, in underserved communities, the urgent need to survive takes priority over learning. Children end up skipping school due to conflicts with teachers that arise after successive unfinished homeworks.
Most of these children are academically gifted. They miss out on the personal benefits of an education as Kenya misses out on the societal benefits of their talent. A ten-year-old might be one book away from discovering their passion in conservation. But the lack of such basic resources in many communities will snatch from us a great environmentalist who could solve our climate change crisis.
Currently, a child’s primary school education determines their performance on national exams, which determines their admission into a national high school, which determines their opportunities to study at university and later on, their career opportunities. A child must receive high quality education from an early age to discover what they want, who they are, and the person they could become.
One small step we can take to support students’ education is to make it easier to access learning resources.
I would like to see a child from Kibera receive the same education as a child from Kilimani.
I would like these children to both go into an exam room and feel that they are adequately prepared because they were provided with every learning material they ever needed during their course of study.
I want children from underserved communities to walk right into a science contest and feel confident because they have read enough research materials and can defend their projects.
I want every primary school in Kenya to have a well equipped library with too many books, not too little.
What I don’t want is for any child to have to spend hours in school to finish homework like I once did.
Let us change this narrative.
When I was younger, a volunteer from Canada named April gave me the book “Jack and the Beanstalk.” I would lose myself in Jack’s daring and magical world. One old book transformed me into a dreamer who takes risks. Imagine what the other old books in our homes could do for the children in our community. If we all came together to donate these books to our nearest public schools, we could improve the lives of every child in Kenya.
I volunteer with Page Turners Kenya, an organization that aims to expose underprivileged children to knowledge that has not been made available to them. Page Turners Kenya establishes and equips libraries in disadvantaged communities, and hosts weekly sessions to guide students through the reading process. This year alone, 25 volunteers renovated a school library and gathered more than 450 books and board games for a children’s center in Dagoretti.
We can all participate in these efforts directly by donating books to children and public schools, as well as supporting organizations like Page Turners. Let us all turn to look at our home libraries and book collections, and single out books that children in our communities need. If we don’t have the books, we can commit to buying at least one book for one child every year. Our little efforts will collectively change the educational stories of millions of current and future children in our country.
Recently, our very own World Marathon Champion Eliud Kipchoge, opened the Eliud Kipchoge Library. Most of us can’t run like Kipchoge. But all of us are capable of doing great things for our community in our own ways. You can be the star in a child’s life by buying or donating a single book.
Rosemary Wangui is an incoming freshman at Beijing Institute of Technology majoring in Computer Science but currently is at NorthEast Normal University Preparatory School of Chinese Studies.
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