You Can't Imagine What Ahadi CEO Said On Their 9th Birthday Celebrations In Kiandutu.

“The key to fighting the jigger menace lies not in their physical removal but in poverty eradication.”

This was the keynote message by Ahadi Kenya Trust CEO Dr. Stanley Kamau Maina on Thursday when presenting shoes to the pupils of Kianjau Primary School in Thika Sub-County.

Kamau said that it was futile for the government to talk about achieving the country’s Vision 2030 when millions could not access the basics due to jigger infestation. Poverty, he said, was the biggest cause of jigger infestation due to unsanitary living conditions.

“Majority of those who suffer from jiggers live in extreme poverty and efforts to rid them of are quite challenging due to their unsanitary living conditions. It is the high time that everyone including the government started working on the prevention measures by empowering our people economically,” said Kamau.

In an occasion that also doubled up as the 9^th birthday celebrations of Ahadi Kenya Trust, Kamau promised to support the parents of those who he helped to rid of jiggers to start their own income generating activities.

“For those of you who have benefited from this programme today, go and form yourself into groups and I will help you start some business. For a start, Ahadi Kenya has pledged Ksh.100,000 as the initial capital for that project,” he said.

He said that his organisation had targeted to benefit 10 million kids with the shoe programme with 5 million shoes already distributed to needy children.

Kamau faulted the proposed 8-4-4 curriculum change saying that the problem lied not on the system of education but with the individuals who ran the system. He argued that so many people had successfully gone through the system thus it was only a matter of setting up the right structures in the development of our syllabi.

He added that the same individuals were to blame for the rampant exam cheating which had dogged so many learning institutions in the country. He suggested that the same mechanism that the government used in monitoring and administering general elections be adopted in the supervision of national exams.

“Why don’t we have exams monitors and security personnel in every examination centre as we do in polling stations? The government needs to set up proper structures to involve everyone in the management of education in this country. We need to see the practical lessons back into our systems to equip the learners with technical skills too. Cheating in exams can only be blamed on the over-emphasis of exams in our education curriculum,” he said.

Besides children and some elderly people having their jiggers removed, the children were also fed with nutritious porridge that had been donated by Palma Foods Company.

LOTTO Betting Company also facilitated the event that had been organised by Madam Susan Gitau, who happens to be a product of the ghetto. Susan grew up in Kiandutu Slums and has been very passionate about empowering the slum child.

Thika MP Alice Ng’ang’a graced the occasion and urged the event organisers to make it a half-yearly programme so as to benefit as many slum children as possible. She promised to work hand in hand with organisers of such events as it was in such deeds that we would rescue our people from poverty.