Kuza Initiative 101: The Selfless Desire for the Good of Others

Guest Feature by Rosemary Wanjiru

One day on a Saturday afternoon while surfing through the internet, I happened to view an event for young people on Facebook. Unlike most events, this particular one caught my eye because there were no high-profile speakers invited yet about 100 young people were interested in the event. I found this unique! The event was young people having deep, meaningful conversations on life and how it has unfolded for them at a personal level.

Later on, I joined a WhatsApp group where these conversations happened daily through the founder of the initiative, Eliud Choge. The group is characterized by conversations around building healthy relationships, faith, career growth and occasionally politics.

On requesting Eliud to share how he began the initiative, he was open to it and gladly shared the Kuza Initiative story.  This is what he shared with me:

Kuza’s story began back in June 2013, during my last year at Segero Adventist High School in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County. I had just finished my tenure as School Captain, and we were having discussions with a friend of mine called Brian on what we can do to give back to the school community around us. There was a primary school close to our school and we figured why not start a mentorship program aimed at inspiring our younger brothers and sisters to develop character as they strive for academic excellence? And that’s how we started.

We first recruited mentors from high school students who were willing to mentor primary school pupils. We then focused on the pupils from class 6 to class 8, divided them into mentorship teams and assigned 2 mentors to each team. We would then have our sessions every Saturday afternoon for about two to three hours. We would have discussions on set topics, some of which the pupils themselves had suggested. Topics such as peer pressure, how to handle failure, drugs, relationships with parents or guardians, stress, the mind, faith, and values, getting through difficult times, setting goals, talents, purpose and personal development among others.

As we progressed with our sessions, week after week, our relationship with the pupils became stronger and soon we were not just mentors but friends. They started opening up more and sharing their experiences freely. After our sessions, we would play games together and soon we became a family. This taught us an important lesson; that the foundation of deep, meaningful relationships is the selfless desire for the good of others.

Our motto at Kuza Initiative is; “It’s ultimately about people; the love you show and the help you give.” We believe that success in life is ultimately measured by the extent to which efforts are made to help and strengthen people around you. This is our greatest motivation. To serve and inspire many more young people to live for selfless excellence by promoting values of diligence and service to humanity.

Service is the reason we are on earth. To be stewards of the resources, talents, and gifts God has given us – not as an end in itself – but for the blessing of those around us and for posterity. So what we do at Kuza is not a question of whether there’s an alternative, but Kuza simply embodies a way of life that we apply not just in how we run Kuza but in the way we run other aspects of our lives. Being intentional in building meaningful relationships and leveraging on them to make a positive impact on society.

We have since been continuing our mentorship programs in high schools across the country but as of 2018, we started a volunteering program that involves connecting our mentors and mentees to meaningful volunteering opportunities in Children Homes and other places where there is a need for volunteers. We have since connected our volunteers to Thomas Barnados Children’s Home in Lang’ata and Motherly Care Children’s Home in Ruai. We have an annual Kuza Volunteering Week where all our volunteers are involved in actual volunteering work as volunteer tutors, mentors or help in support work such as cleaning, tending to and playing with children in the homes. We have also been helping genuinely needy students raise their fee balances in an aim to meet the needs of young people in very practical ways. Additionally, we have several projects in the pipeline aimed at creating a sustainable benevolent system that is not entirely dependent on donations but can create value on their own.

We especially target young people who are in transition stages in their lives e.g. from high school to campus or just from campus to the job searching phase. We desire to solve the problem of widespread identity crisis and a lacking sense of direction among young people in the country that’s compounded by inadequate mentorship and support structures.

I can say there has never been a better time to stand up and be part of the solution to the challenges that face our country and in extension the African continent. To the young person reading this, my plea to you is simple: don’t be a passive citizen. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. There is no middle ground. Look around you and identify what is that one thing you can do to solve one problem in your community. It’s in doing our best and in faithfulness in the work that lies nearest, that we are prepared to face tomorrow’s challenges.

In conclusion, even in the situation that we find ourselves in – with a growing number of restless and unemployed youth, rising cases of senseless killings, suicides, obscene greed, corruption and a general lack of trust in the systems built to uphold the interest of the public – there is still hope.  There is hope that the young people in this generation are taking it upon themselves to be active citizens and be part of the solution.

One of my favorite authors, Ellen G. White in her book Education p. 57.3 puts it this way: “The greatest want of the world is the want of men—men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.”

Rosemary is a Kenyan Journalist, Story Teller, Avid Reader, Champion of the Girl-child and Communication Officer at Alabastron