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BRINGING SUN SHINE HOME
To some of us, the word ‘Mother’ is not limited to mean a lady who gave birth to us, but it extends to the very land where our umbilical cord was buried. If you view your area of origin as your mother then all her subjects become your brothers and sisters, the natural resources become your treasure and wealth, the customs and traditions become your image and way of life and the surrounding environment become your home. For me, that place is the paradise land of kisumu.
Being a son of Kisumu, I am highly indebted to everything that contributed to my upbringing to the person I am this minute. I am still working on my future but whatever I am today, and whatever I become, I owe it to the society and the environment I grew up in. Hence, something humane in me, calls for the need to stand duty-bound to promote the sanctity of the face of kisumu and its identity thereof.
Dear Kisuma, the reputation of our land as the most stunning and serene place to visit, is already in tatters. Our popular mantra of ‘ Kisumu Dala’ is slowly being shoved to the back seat and our customs and culture are drowned in the quagmire of the past. The current generation is not aware of our historical and living figures who are people of high stature and pedigree and who made relentless effort in ensuring that their grandchildren (this generation) enjoy the fruits of their hardwork. Their achievements and contributions to our lives will forever remain etched in the annals of the history of Kisumu. Today, it tugs at one’s heart to see every indeginous person looking for greener pastures away from home. Who will then sing our celebrated song of ‘kisumu dala by Owiyo ‘ if everyone is abandoning it? Kisumu needs each one of us to bring it to the rightful place that it deserves to be. Whether you are on ground or in diaspora, we all play a pivotal role in restoring the integrity and honour of our mother land.
Today we live in a Kisumu where issues of drug and substance abuse are rampant, HIV/AIDS prevalence is of alarming rate, moral decay has engulfed our town in every nook and corner leading to exposure of illicit sexual behaviour among school going children. It is now the order of the day to hear cases of homicide and heinous killings by pangas and lethal weaponry, the menace of illiteracy hits us left, right and centre while most of the families live in abject poverty, dignity amongst our women has gone to the dogs and our streets are filled with youthful beggars.
The place I come from, people are in fight with themselves and our political ideologies form the basis of our enemity and personal vendetta. We play blame games with the people in authority while we are reluctant to play our roles at personal level. Unemployment is at its peak and our youth are on unending mission of job-hunting which becomes an attempt in futility. To make it worse, our fellow kisuma who are away are always cheeky to say ‘ Kisumu dala nindo’ while they are busy doing nothing for the betterment of Kisumu.
In view of the above, there is dire need in putting interests of our society at heart. In the advent of devolution and the wake of various development projects expected in Kisumu, we hope our brethrens and sisters will come back and the land will rise to its proper position. Whenever you get an opportunity to come back just grab that opportunity coz there is so much power in numbers and we get relevance by our unity. Infact, people should procreate because it will work to our advantage in socio-economic and political arenas.
We also need to educate our offsprings. In education, we shall raise a generation with a difference whom we shall enhance their capacity to fight economic marginalization and such other vice that is prone to derail our development agenda. In this regard, we must prioritise the bible study education for our children at their tender age. This will equip our generations with proper spiritual tools that will guide them in their endeavours. Girl child education is key. You educate a girl child you educate the entire nation. It is at this juncture that I want to register my displeasure in the issue of early marriages that rob the community of potential doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses etc.
To fight unemployment, we need to have more capacity building programs to enlighten the youth, women and PWDs on group formation and sustainability. We need to create awareness on the available grants and loan facilities to enable positive transformation of economic sector among the marginalized groups. We should bring on board professional trainers on board to train our people on personal finance management as a way to eradicate poverty in our area. The marginalized groups should also be empowered to benefit from the procurement opportunities available in the government with special interest in the 30% Government Tender Rules. Our people need to know that for you to be rich you don’t need to be employed but start up your own business enterprise.
Social development is something of cardinal importance in any society so as to give them an identity and for them to be recognised for who they are. The young people of Kisumu need to learn their history, and let our elderly reduce into writing all the historic instances that were incidental to our social growth and development. ‘Ustaarabu’ is a word that is testament to us as people with our own set of dignified customs and traditions handed down to us by our fore fathers. We need to throw parties in commemorating our heroes and to take into cognizance special dates in the calendar of societal advancement. For us, our language, culture, dress code, food cuisine, and others are our heritage that we inherited since time immemorial. Let all of us, especially women, carry ourselves in a manner that doesn’t demean our character and integrity. We need to go back to our roots and understand that our grandfathers succeeded to have morality embedded in the hearts of their children because every child was treated as a community child and any person could play fatherly role on that child.
For our political progression, let us be tolerant with each other’s political views. Development projects should not be done selectively in the lines of political affiliations. Each one of us should be treated with equality and fairness regardless of our views, religion, ethnicity, age group and gender. Let us observe the national values and principles of governance as enshrined under Article 10 of our Constitution. We need to conduct ourselves with decorum and to hold each person to account for the authority bestowed upon him. The principles of transparency and accountability should be exercised by the community through civil societies, NGOs and at individual level through social audits, monitoring and evaluation exercise and play positive oversight role on any duty bearer. Personally, I feel 5 years period is too little to expect alot from our leaders, henceforth, if we will keep changing leaders every 5 years then we will just give them an opportunity to develop a roadmap of their development agenda without its implementation. More importantly, we need to wake up, how on earth can we have 12 people of our own fighting for a single electoral seat? If we have the best interest of Kisumu at heart then we need not replicate selfish interests as witnessed in 2013.
In conclusion, we are the authors of our own story. Kisumu is our home let us stand for her, defend her, protect her and promote anything that serves good to her. Let us ensure prosperity in socio-economic, political and cultural sectors and everything will be a walk in the park, Inshallah. Let us not give up on fellow youth who are trapped into drugs coz they need us the most and I believe in the power of the youth. If you are youth, then stand for a fellow youth and when you play your role and I play mine, we will get to the Kisumu that we always yearn for. We have challenges but if we allow them to be our weaknesses then our grand children will never forgive us. A journey of a 1000 miles start with one step, therefore, let’s walk together and don’t leave anybody behind. We will get there one day, you know why? because Rome was not built in one day. TUNAWEZA.
The writer is Mr. Jairo kevin junior senator kisumu county n the nyanza region chairperson in YSk
