Harambee

Harambee is a Kenyan community word meaning ‘holding hands’, pulling together for a certain course, self help events e. g fundraising or development acts.

This word Harambee was popularized by Kenya’s founding Father, the late President Jomo Kenyatta as he rallied Kenyan’s to work in unity to build the nation following attainment of the independence in 1963 for Kenya.
When I was growing up in the family of thirteen, my parents were very poor and owed a very small piece of land. This made our schooling very difficult. The food was scarce in our house as we used to compete on any that was ever available.

My elder sister passed very well to join high school but it was not easy for her to join as we did not have enough school fees for her. My dad suggested that this could be possible if we did a ‘Harambee’. My mum agreed to this am mobilized our neighbors and friends for this great day.
When the big day came, our neighbors and friends came to hold our hands. They Harambee raised enough money for pay school fees for my sister, buy her uniform and books listed to start high school.
Many our village mates learned from this event. Any time their children passed to join high school and they were short of the school fees, they called a harambee and fund raised enough for the child to join the high school.

All my school life I was able to learn through Harambee. Thanks to those who contributed to this. I hold an MBA in Project Management all because of the spirit of ‘holding hands’ .

I am currently the heading an NGO called Hope for Teenage Mothers’. This project empowers young teenage girls who have dropped out of school due to teenage pregnancies. Our project has been able to run for the last 2 years and graduate girls in Micro Finance and vocational training through ‘holding hands’.

If we all hold hands we shall succeed we shall encourage one another and succeed. At our social network of Pulse I encourage all of us to hold hands as I can testify to the advantages of doing this Today as I am a real life experience.

God bless you all.

Executive Director
Hope for teenage mothers
LUCY NDUNGU.