US airlift beneficiaries meet for the first time

It was a day of joy and excitement when Kenyans who benefited from the Africa Airlift Programme in the 1960s gathered for the first time in Nairobi. The group, commonly known as the Airlift Alumni, mingled and shared experiences of the good old days at a reception organised for them by the US Embassy on Thursday evening.

The father of US President Barrack Obama was among the beneficiaries of the programme. It is while he was studying in the US that Obama Sr married a Kansas girl, Ms Ann Dunham, the US President’s mother. Politician Tom Mboya, who was assassinated in 1969, had started the airlift project with the African-American Students Foundation in the US.

Nobel laureate Prof Wangari Maathai, who gave the keynote address at the party, recalled that during the time tribalism did not exist.“I was a daughter of a nobody, a girl from nowhere, but because I had topped my class at Limuru Girls High School, I was picked as one of the beneficiaries,” she said.

The fete was hosted by US ambassador Michael Ranneberger at his Muthaiga residence. The Embassy organised the reception jointly with Zawadi Africa Education Fund — a programme designed to provide scholarships to academically gifted girls from disadvantaged backgrounds in Africa to pursue higher education in the US.

Start programme

The fund’s executive director Susan Mboya said her mother Pamela, who is also deceased, encouraged her to start the programme to emulate what her father had started. Many beneficiaries of the airlift programme, including veteran journalist Philip Ochieng’, were also in attendance.

Many of these beneficiaries attended elite universities in America before returning to develop Kenya after independence. Former Vice President Moody Awori and businessman Chris Kirubi were among the guests at the function. Mr Ranneberger said about 7,000 Kenyans are currently studying in the US — the largest number from any country in the continent.