Benjamin M.
St Al’s Graduation Class of 2010
We Are the Lucky Ones
“We are the lucky ones!” claims Benjamin M, a 3rd year student at St Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School in Nairobi’s Kibera slum. His whole family is making sacrifices so that he and his older brother Victor can attend secondary school – the only ones that their family can afford to send to school. Benjamin says, “We thank God for St Aloysius and for this opportunity to receive this free, high quality education. And so, we work hard to achieve our goals.”
Benjamin is 16 years old and he is the fifth of six children. He and his next older brother came to Nairobi to live with their oldest brother, Philip, 29, who acts as their guardian. They live in a one room rental property near the school in Kibera, one of Nairobi’s densest and largest slums. The three Muli men cook, clean and do laundry for themselves. The two younger ones dedicate themselves to study while Philip struggles to sustain the ‘family’ selling clothes at an open air market. Benjamin and Victor can only afford to travel to visit their parents once a year. Benjamin tears up acknowledging that he misses them a lot. Yet he knows that if he stayed “up country”, the family could not afford even to send them to the local public school. Benjamin concludes, “At home, my future could have been ruined.”
Their Aunt heard about the new school through Sr. Luciana who teaches Religion at St Al’s. . She too is a teacher and could spot a good educational opportunity for them and so she rushed to enroll her nephew’s.
Benjamin happens to be one of the shortest students in his grade and has a reputation among his 35 classmates of being kind, hard working, respectful and a friend to all. He has dreams of going on to college to study electrical engineering. His favorite subjects in school are physics, math and geography. “Oh,” he adds, “And playing football!” Ben is also a member of the Science Club where he’s grateful to learn more about these subjects on Tuesday afternoons. It’s fortunate that he likes being at the school because the students are there from 7:30 am until 5:30 pm daily. Even on Saturdays! Ben is grateful that the school has “Morning Preps” - organized group study time. “Because we have a longer class day than at public schools, St Al’s performs very well on the very important national Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams.”
Benjamin sprouts a smile in admitting that the friendly competition between students makes them all work harder. He praises the staff, mentioning some by name, conceding that, “The teachers are well trained and I can see that they really care for us. They are good role models for us and give us good advice.” He notes that the school offers free school uniforms, textbooks, and he is grateful that “the teachers don’t go on strike like the other schools.”
“By offering this free education our benefactors are really making Kibera proud.” The students themselves proudly wear the school crest on their forest green sweaters, white shirts and gray ties. Ben mentioned that he wants to be able to give back to his community and by his example, show others how to live peacefully together.
Benjamin only wishes there were more schools like St Aloysius Gonzaga in the slums so that more poor children could receive such a good education. He is grateful to all who contribute money towards the school noting that, “By your investment in our education and our formation all of Kenya will benefit.”
~ by Fr. Jim Collins, SJ
To learn more about and support St. Al’s, please visit the website http://www.sagnairobi.org/ or call 1-800-922-5327 at the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus - http://www.jesuits-chi.org/
