Kenyan man denies suicide attempt reports; wants recognition of a street children group
Street children in Nyeri , Kenya, who have come together to form a self -help group known as "Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group" to collect garbage and sell any recyclables as a means of improving their standard of life. |
Joram Gichuki, founder of Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group. Pics courtesy of JSYG |
By Harrison Maina, AjabuAfrica.com
Posted Thursday, Feb 2, 2012
NYERI, Kenya _A man who was recently reported in the Kenyan media to have attempted to kill himself by jumping from a 50 meter high telecommunications transmission mast has denied the suicide theory.
To the contrary, Joram Gichohi Gichuki says he climbed the towering Safaricom mast in Nyeri town to draw attention to the media and public at large, over mistreatment of a group of street children he had helped rehabilitate and make decent productive members of the society.
The reported incidence took place on December 16, 2011 when word went out that a man had been spotted a top the mast.
Local media reporters rushed to the scene but ignored the victim’s side of the story- creating one of their own - "suicide attempt".
What made a 35yr old father of 4 "attempt suicide"?
The emergence of the booming recycling industry in the Central Kenya town of Nyeri
brought rise to an elite class of middle men who milk the vulnerable street children for near slave labor to maximize their profit.
By purchasing recyclable materials from street children for pennies, they
then sell them to the recycling industry for a tidy profit.
It is against such a backdrop that Gichuki claims his endeavors to have the street children,
sell their merchandise direct to the recycler is not auguring well with the middle men, hence the effort to sabotage the groups activities.
Gichuki insists that there are attempts by some operatives in the Nyeri Municipal Council to hijack and cartel the operations of Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group, a private garbage collection initiative he started by mobilizing the street children in order to help them improve their lives.
Speaking to AjabuAfrica.com on a trans-Atlantic telephone interview, Gichuki, a professional graphics designer whose stint in jail transposed him to an aggressive street children rights advocate, said that the activities of the group have proven to be effective in cleaning up the town and its environment, while enabling the street children earn a decent living.
He claimed to have recently received anonymous threatening letters and phone calls, pressuring him to abandon his initiative and leave the city for good.
“As the founder of the poor street children group, I felt that I could not give up the fight and abandon them just when they had started getting their lives back together,” said Gichuki, the 35 years old father of 4.
“I used to see street children begging in the streets and scavenging on dumpsites but did not think much of them,” Gichuki told Ajabuafrica.com.
However, after landing in prison for a crime he says he did not commit, Gichuki met a former street children leader who brought the plight of the marginalized members of the community to his awareness.
“I spent 5 months in remand prison for a crime I did not commit. While there, I was being protected by the former street children leader, my heart was touched and I felt I needed to do something to help street children in my rural town if I ever get freedom,” he added.
Gichuki says that he landed in jail after an arrest for the “staged motor vehicle robbery charge” after he was framed by the same people who had sold a vehicle to him on installments.
According to Gichuki, the same sellers later reported to the police that the vehicle had been stolen so as to intimidate him to give it back after owning it for only six months.
He said that while traveling to Namanga for an Easter holiday outing in the company of his wife, 2 brothers, and a wife of one of the brothers and 3 children, the car sellers tipped the police who then ambushed him on Isinya road.
However, the car got a puncture about a mile from the police dragnet forcing them to stop and ask for help.
“This is what probably saved our lives as the police had to come and help us with the flat tire. We could have all been shot in the car the same way police shoot carjackers”, said Gichuki.
However, the police informed the family that the car had been reported stolen so they still had to arrest them and booked the entire family at the Bamburi Police station in Mombasa, the location of the alleged car theft.
Gichuki pleaded with the police to release the rest of the family as he would take full responsibility since he was the car owner.
Luckily, he had documents of purchase to support the claim.
“They set free my family but transferred me to the Shimo La Tewa remand prison in Mombasa where I spent the next 5 months fighting the charges. I declined to bribe for my freedom as expected, but I was eventually released as the accusers withdrew the case since they lacked evidence”, he said.
Upon release, Gichuki, who used to live in Nairobi before the arrest, decided to return to his rural home in Mahiga village in Nyeri District for a change of scene.
But before he resigned to a life in the rural areas, Gichuki sought help from volunteering lawyers in Nairobi to seek freedom for the former street children leader who had helped him in jail.
The lawyers succeeded in the mission by aggressively fighting the charges preferred upon the jailed former street child, now a free man.
A few weeks later, he moved to the local urban area of Ruringu within Nyeri municipality.
With a new realization of how sweet freedom is, and the thought of the unfair treatment of street children, he decided to befriend several of them in Ruringu with a goal to organize them as a group and help them fight for their rights for a better life.
Initially, Gichuki says, the children were reluctant to take up his idea as they did not trust his motive.
“In the past, the street children have been used as a stepping stone by others with selfish motives,” said Gichuki.
“But as time went on, they started believing in me and we formed a group. I organized and sponsored them. We started cleaning up the environment as a way of doing something positive in the community,” he added.
The group soon started planning to outsource manual jobs from companies in the city that would need cleaners or other laborers for pay.
Within a short period of time, the group started earning recognition from the local community for their efforts.
They even won accolades from National Environment Management Authority for the efforts that were making the city cleaner.
Encouraged by the efforts of the group, Gichuki said, the Nyeri District probation Officer initiated a program that would eventually have street children serve non custodial sentences for after arrests for petty crimes.
This was in order to prevent them from meeting hardcore criminals in prison.
The Nyeri District commissioner went as far as summoning up the group’s officials and interviewed them in order to understand the group’s agenda.
According to Gichuki, the District commissioner liked and approved the efforts of the Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group.
The group’s efforts have also been recognized by the Nyeri town council town clerk, S.M Mulaga.
“Joram has shown it is possible to rehabilitate these people and make them live a productive life,” said the town clerk in a recommendation letter for the group obtained by Ajabu Africa.
The success that the group is attaining did not come easy.
Gichuki had to instill some level of discipline among members who previously lived a disorganized life where survival rather than organization was the top priority.
He educated them to stop stealing the metallic doors to the garbage dumpsters within the municipality for sale to the recycling companies.
He led them in creating timber doors to replace the already stolen metal bars to prevent the garbage from spilling over before collection.
The group collected large quantities of plastic bags, metals and other pollutants with a view to sell directly to the recycle companies by passing the seasoned brokers.
In an effort to gain formal recognition, the group requested official registration by the Nyeri county council.
They also sought recognition as stake holders in the private garbage collection deals that are being worked out by the Nyeri council as a way to improve services.
“This is where the trouble started. I started receiving threats to stop our activities and goals,” he told Ajabuafrica.com.
“I don’t understand it. If the town council appreciates our efforts, why do some people in the same council threaten us and block us from engaging in these meaningful and innovative activities to earn a living,” wondered the young human rights fighter.
However, Gichuki has the spirit of a fighter, probably inherited from his ancestors.
Family sources told Ajabuafrica that Gichuki’s family has fearlessly served rights of the community for many generations.
His great grandfather, Hosea Kiura, was shot and killed in the Mau Mau rebellion around 1953 in Nyeri.
His grandfather was a fierce mau mau fighter by the name General Matenjagwo.
Originally from Gatara village in Muranga district, general Matenjagwo took to the forest with others in the fight for Kenya’s independence, leaving behind his wife and 2 young daughters.
The wife (Gichuki’s grandmother), was then subjected to the demeaning physical and sexual torture that all wives of the mau mau fighters endured when African collaborators and colonial soldiers came seeking for information on the fighters’ movements.
She was later forced into a forced marriage by the area sub-chief, siring six children in the process.
Unfortunately, all the children were denied any rights to property or inheritance by their father who has since passed on.
As a Kanu activist in a heavily Democratic Party (DP) region, the grandmother was then to be beaten unconscious by a gang thought to be DP sympathizers on her way home from the village center.
After a week in the hospital the grandmother succumbed to the injuries and died in April 1995..
Drawing from the same pool of fighter spirits in his forefathers, Gichuki is hoping to serve a helpless lot who have been marginalized by their own community.
“Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group is not interested in fighting the city council. We just want them to help us improve the lives of these street children by recognizing them as stake holders in garbage management so they can make some money from the effort for a more decent living,” emphasized Gichuki during the interview.
“We are also hoping to work out official arrangements with owners of recycling companies so that the street children can get better prices for their products. Recycling industries are some of the most lucrative business ventures. Ironically the suppliers of the raw materials are the poorest in the communities. If the street children are empowered, they can eventually own the recycling industries,” said Gichuki.
He added that said that street children are intelligent, hard working and resourceful members of the community just like anybody else.
The group also plans to use extra funds realized form the sale of recyclables to encourage the street children to join schools by providing for books and associated expenses not covered by the government..
Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group initiative has so far solved the big street children social problem that had been a dilemma to the city and environmental authorities in Nyeri.
Accordingly, Gichuki felt that after the group was denied a permit to demonstrate against the injustice in the town, he had to do something that would attract the attention of the authorities.
Fearing to expose the street children to unnecessary danger were they to take part in an outlawed demonstration, he decided to climb to the top of a heavily guarded satellite mast surrounded by an electric fence to register his protest.
“I figured out how to circumvent the security around the mast. I badly wanted to air my grievances and bring the plight of the street children at a national level on behalf of the street children”, he added.
He sympathized with news reports that depicted him as a distressed person seeking to end his life.
“They completely missed the point and favored the other side since the owners of the recycling industries are powerful and highly respected members of the society. I went up there to draw attention but not to commit suicide”, declares the young man.
He hopes that authorities, members of the community and international organizations and well wishers who learn the truth will come to his aid and help the Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group get established and carry out their intended income generating projects.
He said that they have already applied for grants and loans from many Kenyan organizations and government development funds and still patiently waiting for response.
However, Gichuki said that he is worried for his life as several unknown people have threatened him for helping the street children get a footing within the city but he vowed to soldier on because “liberation never comes on a silver platter”.
The group has also established a face book page “Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group” to network them with people throughout the world and Kenyans in the Diaspora for encouragement and also enable them view their projects.
If given a chance and support, the innovative initiative proves to be a shining role model for simple, cost effective attempts to alleviate causes of extreme poverty, street dwelling and homelessness.
It could also be a blue print to address the plight of abuse and crime victims, easy access to proper health, education and technical training to these hapless members of the community living in the shadows in a fast growing country.
The group can be contacted on 254 722 154 826 or mail: jijenge.group@yahoo.com
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Content Copyright by Ajabu Media Communications, 2012.Not to be republished without a live link to http://ajabuafrica.com/Community-Kenyan%20man%20denies%20suicide%20attempt%20reports.html .
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