Sarah: Obama may skip K’ogelo

United States President Barack Obama may not visit his ancestral home in K’ogelo, Siaya County during his tour of Kenya in July.

Mama Sarah Obama, his step-grandmother, said that she has not received confirmation that President Obama will make it to Siaya.

The US President Kenya will be in Kenya for the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in July.

Preliminary arrangements have it that President Obama will only meet his close family members and representatives of K’Ogelo in Nairobi, she said.

Mama Sarah spoke during the launch of E-reading services at Senator Obama Secondary School on Saturday.

But she thanked President Obama for fulfilling the promise he made to her in November last year, when she (Mama Sarah) visited the United States of America.

“My grandson is coming to Kenya for official duty; he will not get time to visit his ancestral home as being stipulated. We are planning to meet him in Nairobi instead,” said Mama Sarah.

During the function, Mama Sarah Obama Community Library received 35 kindles and 12 cartons of text books from the World Reader Foundation (WRF) and the Kenya Literature Bureau (KLB), respectively.

E-READER

WRF President David Rushurm, who handed over the E-Reader devices to the library, said that the gadgets will improve quality of education in the county.

Dr Rushurm said that each E-reader contains over 1,000 revision books, and costs Sh550,000.

“The world is a global village and each child has a right to access education in order to ease competition with the children from other parts of the world. The devices will help us achieve this,” said Dr Rushurm.

Mrs Eve Obara, KLB’s managing director, presented 12 cartons of text books worth Sh800,000.

Mrs Obara challenged the county governments to invest in girl-child education and said the books will boost this initiative in the region.

“A community with educated women will lower numbers of infant mortality deaths by 50 percent, as the mother will engage in proper health care,” said Mrs Obara.

Meanwhile, talks to host a US President Barack Obama dinner are underway between Siaya county government and Nation Media Group.

Governor Cornel Rasanga said the fete will be used to raise funds to support the education of bright and needy students in Siaya.

Mr Rasanga said that discussions with Nation Media Group management were at advanced stages.

“We are consulting with the Nation Media Group as our main partner on the modalities that will see us incorporate US President Barrack Obama in education of our children,” said Mr Rasanga, who spoke at his home on Saturday after meeting a delegation from West Alego.