Meet The “Mtalii” With A Great Heart For Charity Despite His Humble Background.

For more than thirty two years, Henry Muiruri woke up every morning to his routine job as a tour guide, a duty that enabled him meet and relate with so many people especially foreigners. Majority of his most regular clients consisted of donors who visited Kenya with intent to meet some of their beneficiaries.

It was in the execution of some of these missions that Muiruri aka Mtalii developed the urge to help others.

In 1981 while working with a group of volunteers who were giving food aid to some of the destitute people in Samburu County, Mtalii started offering a helping hand to some of the people he met there. He vividly recalls how he met this young family that was not among those who were in the donors’ list of beneficiaries. 

After listening to their story, he felt so touched first due to the fact that the donors worked under a very strict budget that never gave leeway to go beyond their targeted recipients, thus the family was just out of question as far as these sponsors were concerned.

So, through his own free will, he helped them with some food and clothing from a share of his own salary. He then made it a habit to do the same, every time they visited that village. Later during another visit to Maasailand, he did the same to another family. Eventually, this developed into a hobby and later a duty that according to him, he felt indebted every time he came across a person in need.

It was during that same period that he sponsored two Samburu kids through primary school.

A few years later when he retired from his regular job, the thought of a foreigner leaving their countries to come oversees for charity disturbed him for days. He felt challenged as an individual, especially when he thought of the so many poor people within his native Kiambu County who were unable to take their children to school. The idea of education being the easiest way to liberate a society from poverty made him get enthusiastic to help poor especially the young school kids who were unable to finish their education due to lack of school fees.

With the help of various secondary school principals, Mtalii started identifying needy students who he would pick and seek assistance from well-wishers to their fees cleared. Since this time he had no regular income, he had to knock the doors of some of the prominent friends he had connections with as well as local MPs and politicians.

“I chose education as my line of duty because it is both the means as well as the end to a better life. The means because it empowers an individual to earn their livelihood and the end because it increases one's awareness on a range of issues – from healthcare to appropriate social behaviour to understanding one's rights – and in the process help them evolve as a better citizen,” said Mtalii.

He would identify a sponsor and assign them a student each whom they would sponsor and in a short time, he had five student under his sponsorship programme.

“I used to go to schools and have a discussion with their principals about who among their student was in dire need of assistance. I would then approach some of my friends and politicians and assign these kids to them. With the approval of their parents, I would take over the guardian role of these students so as to ensure that their needs were adequately catered for.”

None of those he assisted was previously known to him in person.

In the year 2010, he felt the urge to assist in a bigger scale thus the idea of starting an N.G.O. for the same was born. It was not until 2012 that he managed to apply for registration and on 26^th of June the same year his entity was certified by the authorities as a duly registered N.G.O. and Mtalii Education programme (M.E.P.) under registration number 0218/051/12-0256/8162 took off as a non-profitmaking organisation.

He, along with his team of volunteers in the programme and took on administering the funds without taking even a coin to cover the expenses they incurred. This was how the program started.

In the last five years, they have assisted several needy children who have qualified for secondary school admission within Kiambu, Murang`a, Nyeri, Meru and Kitui counties as informed by the provincial administration and the respective school principals. They have also been funding partial and absolute orphans as well as persons living with disability.

Currently, the organisation has 25 students in their programme in various institutions in the country that include Joytown School of The Physically Challenged in Thika, Gatanga Girls High School in Murang’a and Nairobi University among others.

Their greatest challenge is the great number of needy children that are seeking their support, consequently overwhelming their meagre funding to meet their growing demand for help. They are therefore appealing to individuals, institutions and companies to come to their rescue by contributing towards the MEP-Kit.

You can reach them via cell phone numbers +254 721 270 446 or +254 731 686 150.

You can also email them through info@mtalii.or.ke or visit their site http://www.mtalii.or.ke/