The egalitarian office of the deputy chairperson is breathing a fresh air since the student council was promulgated.
The student union, Student Association of Technical University of Kenya (SATUK) – in their records has never had a female student leader.
Miss Charlynne Jepkosgei boosts of being the first democratically elected female student, and the first female student to hold a higher elective post in SATUK.
How she managed to beat her closest contender John Derrick Nyabola remains to be a good paid gamble in her campaign master plan.
“Derrick Nyabola was a very well established influential politician unlike myself who was very fresh in politics,” she says.
“Despite being in the previous student union, Mr. Nyabola had a wide experience in politics,” she says stating that he was the most fearful aspirant she has ever contested against.
The fourth year student taking Bachelor of Engineering in Geospatial Engineering doesn’t carry any advantage when it comes to High school and Primary school leadership.
Her introduction to politics came in 2014 when she contested and won on Gender Affairs ticket, a post only reserved for female students.
“I used this post to establish my future political ambition by serving the students and bringing in unique projects that had never been introduced,” she says.
It was very easy to win the confidence of her voters while serving as a Gender Affair representative, she just needed to serve them and remain their best option, something that was very comfortable for her to do.
“I introduced cancer screening for students which was by then reserved for only the staff,” she says.
HIV Counselling, Peer Counselling and Training and improved sanitation within the institution are some of her development projects she boosts about also.
Her master plan campaign relied heavily on 3 groups of people, Advice team, Ground guys and Team Ambassador.
Each had different roles but were united by a single goal, to win the Deputy Chair.
She used a whooping budget of sh. 70,000 in her campaign, she says it was worth risking.
“The campaign budget was funded from personal saving, friends’ contribution and well-wishers,” she explain.
Mr. Migot Nick, one of her campaign confident, notes that there were a myriad of challenges than they had though.
“We had to deal with the way she was stereotyped by her male aspirants,” Mr. Migot recalls.
One of the appalling incident for Mr. Migot is when even ladies stereotyped Miss Jepkosgei when they were instead supposed to help and support her in any way possible.
Mr. Muhanzi Dennis, another campaign strategist, hasn’t forgotten how a negative propaganda was spread on social media.
“It was all there on Facebook and WhatsApp where they told the voters that she is mixing politics with church owing to the fact that she was a church leader,” Mr. Muhanzi says.
For Miss Jepkosgei, her security was once threatened than ever.
“I had to walk in groups because so that I can feel secure, anyone could attack from any place any time,” she recalls.
She looks forward to reduce corruption and goonism which has been largely present within the student union
She thanks her faithful voters and promises to serve them as promised again
