Helping orphans rise and shine

While growing up in a tiny village in Nambale, Busia district, Evelyn Wakhusama empathised with orphans and vulnerable children. They used to suffer a lot every day.

“It worried me a great deal and challenged me to one day assist them,” she recalls.

“Like the orphans, many girls also did not have an opportunity to access education. Thoughts of how I could help them were constantly on my mind.”

When she got a chance to study her masters degree in the United States, she saw it as an opportunity to give back to the community.

“What was always on my mind while in America was a desire to do something for the poor in Kenya, and particularly those in my home village.”

She managed to study in USA after securing a scholarship from the Philanthropic Educational Organisation (PEO), which raises grants, loans and scholarship for women.

Today, Evelyn is the founder of Nambale Magnet School in Busia district, which is modelled on Starehe Boys Centre, Nairobi.

The school is backed by WIKS (Women’s Initiative in Knowledge and Survival), which she founded in 2002.

WIKS was registered in 2003. Its objective is to transform lives and bring about meaningful change using Christian principles.

The group comprises Kenyan women who share in the vision of a world where all people harness their potential and live in dignity.

WIKS has been involved in various projects, such as creating awareness on HIV/Aids, so that the society makes informed decisions.

“The group supports intelligent and disadvantaged students through high school and college,” says Evelyn .

It strives to empower the disadvantaged for life.

This is the reason it envisioned a premier primary school that will offer a solid basic education and great initiatives for survival.

“Through the support of friends, we have invested in seven acres of land within Nambale town in Busia district. We have been fundraising to put up the facility,” Evelyn says.

She adds that the school is offering excellent academic opportunities for orphans and other vulnerable children, as well as for sponsored learners from impoverished villages in Nambale.

“We are also inviting on board self-sponsored students who seek quality and affordable education. This will help us provide wholesome integration,” she says.

Self-sponsored learners will subsidise the cost of sponsored learners. The board is committed to making the school self-sustaining once it is fully in operation.

“We hope to achieve this sustainability through, among other strategies, maximum use of available land to produce food for our kitchen and for sale.”

Evelyn adds that the school’s management board plans to build a supreme conference centre — a missing facility in the region — as well as an endowed apprentice school that will be accessible to the fee-paying public.

The first phase of the project comprises five classes and a dormitory. The school opened its door to pioneer learners on January 12, 2009.

When she returned to Kenya in 2002 after her studies, Evelyn began the school project by empowering local people on HIV/Aids.

“I used to say in my heart that we must bring up the orphans as most homes have been taken over by the disease.

“In August 2007, we had a ground breaking ceremony and then started the construction. We completed the school in 2009.”

Evelyn is an employee of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. She is a research technologist at Muguga and also helps the Anglican Church of Kenya, Muguga.

“Kenyans should take social responsibility seriously and support orphans and vulnerable children. If we want peace, let’s nurture justice. If we are not concerned about the disadvantaged, then we cannot have peace,” she says.

She adds that every abled person should help make a difference in society.

Evelyn is married to Dr Sam Wakhusama, a scientist with AU-IBAR. They have four children, Wendy, Ernest, Patricia and Philip.

Evelyn thanks her family and her peers for their great support.