From Kibera to regional acclaim

Dr Ahmed Yakub Kalebi, the Managing Director and Special Pathologist with Lancet Kenya. He speaks to PETER MUIRURI about growing up in Kibera and working to be be the best in all he does

For this enthusiastic medic, his greatest moments are his life experiences in Kibera where he grew up.

"Kibera is my ancestral home, my shags. I grew up in Kambi Muru, near the railway line, and still have my home and family there. People ask me how it was to grow up in the largest slum in the region and I ask them a question: "How was it to live in your rural home, say in Murang’a or Mumias?" I knew no other home except Kibera," says Ahmed.

A descendant of the Nubian community that settled in Kibera decades ago, Ahmed, 36, recalls the early days of his life in an organised settlement that had pockets of forests and grass fields where the young boys would go hunting for birds and rabbits.

"By the way, many people do not know that Kibera is derived from a Nubian word meaning forest or jungle. It was a green and exciting place, unlike the current situation," he says.

"We all knew one another then. Neighbours too, knew the children and could discipline a wayward child without hesitation or prior consultation with the parents. I just feel we were happier than the ‘barricaded’ children in the affluent neighbourhoods," says Ahmed.

He considered himself among the privileged lads from Kibera who had an opportunity to enrol and stay in school, first at Joseph Kang’ethe Nursery School and later Shadrack Kimalel Primary School.

Positive thinking

He regrets the fact that some of his age mates, some much brighter than he was, later fell into crime.

"It is simply a matter of positive thinking that drove me through life and keeps driving me now," he notes.

To make study more enjoyable for the young fellow with a passion for books, Ahmed’s parents gave him something that was a luxury in the area — a lantern. He also considers himself privileged to have had a tiny seven feet by five feet bedroom all to himself as the only boy in the extended family.

But things were not always rosy and there were times when kerosene was scarce. What did he do in such lean times?

"Not far from our house was a butchery that had an electric light fixture outside for security. I would take my books and stand under the light and do all my homework and any extra reading. Today many people take such things like lighting for granted. The first time I used proper electricity to study was at the University of Nairobi," says Ahmed.

Ahmed was always top of his class right from primary to secondary school in Jamhuri High, Nairobi.

He refers to himself as a "product of scholarships" beginning with the one in primary school where his headmaster, a Mr Ogolla, and the teachers waived the fees. Another scholarship from Young Muslim Association of Kenya saw him through high school before he joined the University of Nairobi for his first medical degree.

However, it was no easy affair getting a scholarship for his postgraduate degree in Pathology from the same university. He remembers visiting the offices of Dr Richard Muga, the then Director of Medical Services, with a request to be granted a scholarship to study Pathology at the university.

"At first, Dr Muga refused to see me. He dismissed me because I was coming straight off internship into specialisation. I showed him a newspaper cutting in The Standard in which he had complained that Kenya lacked enough pathologists and then I walked away," remembers Ahmed. As he left the office, one of Dr Muga’s aides came running to him and there he got the scholarship.

The youthful doctor had a stint as the Provincial Government Pathologist at Garissa Provincial General Hospital where he was instrumental in setting up a fully functional laboratory, propelling the hospital into an internship centre.

Proficiency

His break came in South Africa where he got a British Division of the International Academy of Pathology fellowship at the University of Witwatersrand.

So proficient was he in his studies that he received several job offers in South Africa and other parts of the world. He declined them all, recalling a promise he had made to return to Kenya upon completing his studies.

While in South Africa, he was requested by the director of Lancet Laboratories in South Africa — the largest laboratory in Africa — to get into a partnership that would help them establish a similar lab in Kenya to cope with increased demand for pathological services. By January 2009, the first Lancet Group lab in Kenya, complete with equipment similar to those of affiliate labs worldwide, was up and running.

Today, Ahmed sits at the helm of Pathologists Lancet Kenya, a laboratory group that covers medical-clinical investigations, research, health screening, paternity testing, genetic screening, industrial and environmental occupation health. It consists of 15 branches, handling over 20,000 specimens monthly.

Ahmed’s goal is to see the establishment of more labs, not only in Kenya, but regionally.

"We want to flow like a river and go to where the need for laboratory diagnostics are. Patients and doctors should be able to access lab facilities within their locality, no matter where they are, like they are in the developed world," he says.

The doctor epitomises the true aspects of a leader. Rather than give orders on how to do things, Ahmed leads by example. So busy is he that on this particular morning, having left early for work, his wife Kamari had to deliver his breakfast in the office.

"I met her at the university and since then, she has been supportive as my life partner, soulmate and best friend," says the father of four.

For his outstanding achievements, Ahmed is a recipient of the 2006 Young Achiever’s award from the Association of Pathologists of East, Central and South Africa (Apecsa). He is listed in the Who is who since 2008.

He is keen to develop pathology in Africa and is a founder secretary of the East African Division of the International Academy of Pathology (Eadiap), and founder Chairman of the College of Pathologists of East, Central and Southern Africa (Copecsa).

To give back to the society that catapulted him to medical excellence, he is a founder trustee of the Haiba Foundation that helps needy children access education, besides other community initiatives in Kibera.

Ahmed doesn’t see himself as having reached the top and intends to keep doing what he can to go higher, ever guided by the words of his maternal grandfather: "A cheetah is born to run. It runs faster because it was made that way. It is not simply content with running faster than other animals but aims to run to its fastest. Lesson? Use your ability to the full."

Photo-Dr Kalebi seated- source- www.iaphomepage.org

Source - http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000052839&cid=620&currentPage=2