What it Takes to be a Role Model

As part of the Education for Marginalized Children (EMACK) project of the Aga Khan Foundation, I work in public nursery and primary schools in the Coast and North Eastern Provinces to increase access to quality basic education. One of the activities involves training girls on effective leadership, the importance of education, target setting for good academic performance, HIV & AIDs and understanding the process of sexual maturation. However, as a result of this activity, the boys in the school where the girls received training have raised concerns with their teachers that EMACK has marginalised them from the training and information needed to contribute to their education.
Following my participation in the Gender at Work training workshops in early 2009, I realised the need to design an initiative that would change this situation by motivating both boys and girls to improve their completion rates and academic performance. The initiative, dubbed “role models club”, identifies local role models who have graduated from the target primary school and assists them in offering motivational talks to the pupils currently enrolled.
Bamburi Primary School is one of the EMACK target schools where the boys felt marginalised following the girls’ training. This school was therefore selected as a pilot site for the role models’ club intervention. Based on the agreed role model selection criteria developed by the school community (parents, School Management Committee, teachers and pupils), role models were identified.

One of the role models identified to participate in this initiative is "Juma," a boy who completed his primary education in 2005 despite many difficulties. Juma, an orphan, struggled to remain in primary school because the aunt he was living with did not provide him with the basic needs required to stay in school. Although this discouraged Juma very much, he did not give up, but instead worked hard following the constant encouragement of his teachers. As a result, Juma achieved the top score in the primary school exit examination. Nevertheless, he missed his choice national school by a few points. This shattered his dream because he had hoped to secure a place at the Starehe Boys Centre, a reputable national secondary school where children from poor backgrounds (especially orphans) study on a scholarship basis. With dismay, Juma understood the implications of the missed opportunity and knew that going to another school could easily mean dropping out due to lack of means to pay the school fees. Once again, the teachers from his primary school encouraged him to take up his second choice school, Shimo la Tewa High School, a provincial school in the Coast Province. Furthermore, Juma was fortunate to get a sponsor from the Bamburi Cement Company through the kind efforts of the head teacher at Bamburi Primary School.

Juma is now in his last year of secondary school and is aspiring to become an engineer. Both his sponsor and teachers are happy with his academic performance. As the Kiswahili saying goes, Kisomo hakina mwisho (education has no end): the sponsor is willing to pay Juma’s fees to the education level that Juma aspires. Juma can now afford a smile as his restored hope in life is evidenced by the fact that he never imagined that anyone would ever refer to him as a role model or seek to learn from him. His story is a great source of inspiration to children in the school. For example, “Katana,” a class 8 pupil in Bamburi Primary School, has registered considerable improvement in his class work since Juma has served as a role model. Katana’s mother says, “All he thought about was football and lazing about with his friends. It was impossible to tell that he was a school-going pupil! He would never listen to my instructions… and I was very worried about his end result….But now, he has a time-table and sticks to it. He is now respectful. I thought he was being nice because exams were nearing and wanted to win my favour in case he failed; but now I see that he is changed for the better.”