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

Garbage is their way of life

In case you hadnt seen this video of our ladies and youth in Kibra-taking innovation to a whole new level. Their philosophy is that you cannot waste even waste.They are now recycling every piece of garbage generated by families

http://youtu.be/4-qJxb_S7zg

Source- NTV Kenya.

Nakuru Nubian community cry foul over rights

By Abdul Fatahou Laye

NAKURU: The Nubian community in Nakuru has met to discuss the deliberation by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child that was passed on 30th of September 2011 that the government of Kenya should ensure that the Nubian child is treated equally as a Kenyan child.

Speaking during the meeting, the vice chairman of the Kenyan Nubian Council of Elders, Mr. Ibrahim Athman said that for a long time the Nubian child has been denied rights on the issue of Identity cards, birth certificates, health and education.

The commission which is expected to be in the country for six months will seek to address this and other issues.

During the deliberations, consensus was arrived at that the register of persons ensure that a representative of the community be in the vetting committees of IDs in major towns where Nubians reside.

The community was also encouraged to read and understand the new Constitution which has relevant chapters that enhances their rights especially on the bill of rights and be firm to ensure that it is implemented.

Source : The New Dawn.

Summary-Citizens Minus: Rights, recognition and the Nubians of Kenya

PhD Thesis Samantha Balaton-Chrimes Monash University

Summary

This thesis examines the unequal nature of the citizenship of Kenya’s Nubians. The Nubians of Kenya trace their origins to the Egyptian slave armies of the nineteenth century. Brought by the British to Kenya as soldiers they were categorised as detribalized natives during the colonial era, neither settler nor fully native. This anomalous status has carried over into the postcolonial political community, and the Nubians can today be considered ethnic strangers. Far from being liminal in an inconsequential sense, the various ways in which the Nubians have occupied anomalous social, political and legal categories since they arrived in Kenya have been symptomatic of the hierarchical and exclusionary tendencies of the colonial and post-colonial citizenship regimes.

This thesis argues that the Nubians are not full citizens, but citizens minus. They experience an unequal and insufficient quality of citizenship. The deficit in the Nubians’ citizenship can be measured by the extent to which they lack participatory parity. Although (most) Nubians now have formal membership in the form of citizenship status (a national identity card), they are lacking in social and political standing, that is, lacking in effective membership. Treated as inferior and limited to the margins of the political community, it is more difficult for Nubians to exercise their rights, and both their formal membership and those rights are insecure.
In understanding these deficits, this thesis explores three mechanisms which sustain the Nubians’ marginalisation as ethnic strangers and citizens minus: discrimination in relation to access to national identity cards, the withholding of collective recognition as a tribe of Kenya, and the withholding of recognition of Nubian land in the form of communal land title. In evaluating these mechanisms the thesis draws on political theories of recognition and connects the Nubians’ exclusion from full citizenship to the widespread privileging of indigeneity and autochthony as conditions of full citizenship in Kenya.
In making this argument, the thesis addresses a number of critical questions about the nature of citizenship in Kenya, arguing that national citizenship in Kenya is largely subordinate to and defined by ethnicity. Throughout the thesis, and particularly in the final chapters, the thesis seeks to understand the Nubians’ response to their marginalisation, and the reasons why, and ways in which, they affirm a role for ethnicity in public affairs. In the final chapter the thesis engages in a critique of this role, and an exploration of a moderately transformative approach to ethnicity in the form of moral-inter ethnicity. Such an approach may allow Kenyans to affirm the importance of ethnicity in daily life and in the polity, without affirming ethnic parochialism and inter-ethnic competition, and thereby undermining equal citizenship.

Swahili

Tasinifu hii ni utafiti kuhusu uraia wa jamii ya Wanubi nchini Kenya. Utafiti unachunguza kwa makini vile Wanubi hawana haki sawa na Wakenya wengine. Wanubi wa Kenya, mwanzoni walitoka kwenya makabila mengi ya kisudani na walikuwa wanajeshi watumwa miaka ya karne ya kumi na tisa. Waingereza waliwaleta wanajeshi watumwa huku Kenya na wakawaita ‘Wenyeji wasio na Kabila’ – watu ambao wanaishi kimjini na hawakuwa na uhusiano na makabila yao. Hali hii isiyo ya
kawaida kwenye jamii imedumu na sasa Wanubi nchini Kenya ni ‘Kabila geni’. Shida zinazowakumba wanubi ni kwa sababu ni ‘Kabila geni’ zinaeleza sana siasa na ujamii nchini Kenya.
Tasinifu hii inajadili kwamba Wanubi hawana uraia sawa na Wakenya wengine. Badala yake, ni ‘raia-bila’, kumaanisha wao ni raia lakini uraia wao hauna thamani au maana kama vile ulivyo kwa Wakenya wengine. Kuna tofauti nne kati ya uraia wa Wanubi na uraia wa Wakenya wengine:

 Haki za Wanubi ziko tahadharini kuliko za Wakenya wengine
 Wanubi hawana haki sawa na Wakenya wengine (kwa mfano haki za kumiliki Ardhi)
 Wanubu hawatambuliwi kikamilifu kama jamii la Wakenya
Wanubi hawawezi kushiriki katika siasa rasmi au siasa duni kwa njia sawa na Wakenya wengine. Hii ni kwa sababu hawana uhakika na wakati mwengine hawapewi heshima kama Wakenya.
 Ili kuzielewa shida hizi, Tasinifu hii inapeleleza shida tatu zinazowaadhiri Wanubi:
 Kubaguliwa katika kupata Vitambulisho
 Kutotambuliwa kwa Wanubi kama kabila la Kenya
 Kutokuwa na Ardhi.

Tasinifu hii inatumia mafikira ya kimasomo ya ufumbuvu ili kueleza mambo matatu yanayozusha shida kwa Wanubi. Mafikia haya yanajadili kwamba siasa za Kenya humilikiwa na makabila ya wazawa. Isitoshe, fikira la ‘Uenyeji’ – kwamba watu Fulani wamemiliki nchi toka zana za kale, lina ongoza sana kwenye siasa.. Mwishoni, Tasinifu hii inajadili kuhusu uhusiano kati ya ‘Kabila’ na ‘Uraia’. Inajadili kwamba nchini Kenya, Kitambulisho sio muhimu kuliko kabila. Ni kwa kuwa mwanakabila la ‘wenye siasa’ ndivyo watu wanaweza kufurahia ‘matunda ya uhuru’
Tasinifu hii inaeleza vile Wanubu wanakabiliana na kuadhirika kwao kwa kuuliza maswali kuhusu kutambuliwa kama kabila la Kenya na haki zao za Ardhi katika eneo la Kibera. Njia hii ya kujaribu kupata usawa na Wakenya wengine inazingatia uhusiano kati ya Uraia na Kabila. Hii ni kwa sababu, nchini Kenya, Uraia na Kabila zinalinganishwa, na si rahisi kufikiria njia zingine za kupata usawa.
Lakini, Tasinifu hii inajadili kwamba uhusiano kati ya Kabila na Uraia nchini Kenya unaweza kuanzisha shida nyingi, kama vile ukabila. Hususan, Watu wengi wanasema ukabila inafaa usiunganishwe na Uraia. Mimi ninajadili kwamba ukabila na Uraia zilinganishwe. Kwa mfano, Kwa sabau ni muhimi, Wanubi wawe yote mawili, Wanubi na Wakenya, lakini ukabila na uraia zinalenganishwa tu katika demokrasia kama watu wa makabila tofauti wanaheshimiana na hawashiriki katika ubaguzi wa kikabila.

Kinubi

Bahth de garaya ta jinsiya asli ta mujtama’a ta Nubi fi Kenya, u hadaf to aina tofauti ma qabila wadin ta Kenya. Nubi ta Kenya awal abidu min gabaail ketir ta Sudan al kan min askeria mamluk fi qarni ta tisa tashar. Englisia ta British ya jib askeria mamluk dolin de fi Kenya. Englisia jib askeria dolin de fi Kenya, u mon nadi umon nas al ma endis qabila, yaani, anas al gi ishi maisha ta madina u mon gata umon min qabila to umon ta asli.
Bahth gi nakish au jadil za gal Nubi ma endis haki ta jinsiya za anas ta Kenya wadin. Walakin, mon raia nuksan, maana to umon muwatinin, lakin jinsiya to umon ma endis thaman ma maana za fi na anas wadin ta Kenya. Fi fajwa muhim arba bain ta jinsiya ta Nubi, ma jinsiya ta anas wadin:
 Haki ta Nubi fi khatar zaid.
 Nubi ma endis haki sawa za anas wadin fi Kenya, (mathal haki ta ardhi)
 Nubi ma gi itirafu za anas ta mujtama’a ta Kenya.
Nubi ma agder sharik fi siasa rasmi u ab ma rasmi sawa ma jinsiya wadin ta kenya ashan saa taan mon meendis haiba, u saa tan ma gi hishma umon za nas ta kenya.
 Ashan kede ta fahim taab dolin de, bahth de gi fetish taab talata al gi qabil Nubi:
 Gishiri fi ligo Butaka shaksiya (ID cards)
 Ma gi itirafu Nubi za qabila ta Kenya
 Faqada ardhi
Bahth de gi istamil taaluma ta garaya ta taaraf, weri namna al ajana talata de gi taban Nubi. Bahth gi nakish au jadil za fi Kenya, fikra ta ‘qabila asliya’ ya Wakenya chapi baraa ya gi saitar fi siasa. Ma de baraa, lakin fikra ta ‘autochthony’ yaani nas flan ya amsuku badu ma ardhi min zaman – Kaman gi saitar fi siasa. De maana to qabila barau al fi ma belee ya gi aina umon za asiliya ta Kenya. Akhir, bahth de gi wonus fi alaka bain ta ‘Qabila’ ma ‘Ujinsia.’ Gi jadil za gal fi Kenya itiraf ta Jumuia ma muhim za gal itiraf ta qabila. Kun fi qabila ‘al sahih fi siasa’ ya azol bi farih zaid fi akul ’fawaakiha ta Istiklal.’
Bahth gi jarib wadih namna al Nubi jawab fi asuru to umon. fi asadu itiraf za qabila ta Kenya, ma asadu haki ta ardhi ta Kibra. Sika de, ta jarib kun sawa fi jumuia ta Kenya gi kutu wasila bain ta jinsiya ma qabila. De shor fi Kenya, jinsiya ma qabila mara zaid gi amsuku badu, u ma rakhis feker sika wadin ta ligo usawa.
Walakin, bahth de gi jadil au nakish za gal alaka bain ta uqabila ma jinsiya fi Kenya agder jib taab Milan za uqabila. Anas wadin gi kelem za uqabila kede ma kun ma suhba ma jinsiya. Ana gi jadil za gal uqabila ma ujinsiya agder yunga, mathal ashan muhim na Nubi kede kun Nubi u Wakenya, lakin jinsiya ma qabila agder yunga fi democracy kan anas min qabila muktalif agder hishma badu, u kede mon ma dakal umon fi uqabila.

Kibra residents cry foul over new boundary proposal

By Fauzia Wangare

The Kibra Land Committee has written a memorandum to Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) terming some of the proposals suggested as “inhuman” and aimed at only achieving political interest.

The memorandum signed by KLC secretary Jamaldin Yahya, opposed the removal of Toi market, several schools, Woodley and Joseph Kang’ethe Sports/social center from Kibera.
“It is inhuman to propose that we give up this land for another political interest without consideration to our communal interest,” read the memorandum.
KLC wants the land falling within Ngong road and Kibera drive to be part of Kibra constituency.
The memorandum touched on historical injustices where for over 100 years residents of Kibera have known nothing else but dispossession.
This land we call home, read the report, was brutally violated from 1950s when Colonial Government decided they needed playgrounds for their gentry. The post colonial government including with the current one have done the same.
The areas being proposed to go to either Dagoretti or Karen have several schools and sports ground which is the only social ground in the area. It also has Toi market which is the economical hub of the area.
The memorandum was also signed by the Kibera Development Committee, Nubian Rights Forum, Toi market traders, business persons women groups and primary school parents.

Source - http://www.thenewdawn.info/

Who are the Nubians?

Nubians from Sudan/Eygypt History...from BBC RADIO...Sudan correspondent James Copnall has been finding out about the culture which is not that well known.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9668000/9668376.stm

The Nubis of Kibera- A social history of the Nubians and Kibera Slums

Thesis on the Nubians by Johan de Smedt, to read please click on the link below to download the Thesis :

The Nubis of Kibera

For more information kindly contact Johan de Smedt at johandesmedt2001@gmail.com

Thank you.Happy Reading.