Daughter’s dreams from her father

Photo/FILE Nationalist Tom Mboya’s daughter, Dr Susan Mboya (second left), with students in the Zawadi Africa Fund programme on July 8, 2009 during the 50th celebrations to mark the original airlift project in Nairobi.

By PETER LEFTIE pmutibo@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Monday, July 4 2011 at 20:10

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He may not be alive, but Tom Mboya’s legacy lives on, exactly 42 years on Tuesday since he was felled by an assassin’s bullet.

Today, 145 bright young women from poor backgrounds are benefiting from scholarships to study in prestigious universities and colleges both locally and abroad.

Through Zawadi Africa Education Fund, Mr Mboya’s daughter, Dr Susan Mboya, continues to promote the famous airlifts her father pioneered in the 1950s through 60s to help promising Kenyan youth acquire quality education in the US.

Assassin’s bullet

Whereas Zawadi Africa Education Fund will not be hosting any event on Tuesday to mark 42 years since Mr Mboya succumbed to an assassin’s bullet outside Chhani’s Pharmacy on Government Road (Moi Avenue), the fund is planning elaborate celebrations to mark 10 years since the new “airlifts” started.

According to the fund’s programmes administrator Rose Adhiambo, Zawadi Africa will host its annual dinner on September 8 to start celebrations leading to the 10th anniversary since it was founded in 2002.

“We had planned our annual dinner this Thursday to celebrate our achievements and reflect on the challenges ahead, but this is not possible due to financial constraints.

“We will, however, hold the function on September 8 to start events leading to 10 years since we started,” Ms Adhiambo told the Nation on Monday.

Just like Tom Mboya’s famous airlifts that saw promising young Kenyans — such as Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai and Prof Leah Marangu, Kenya’s first woman vice-chancellor — acquire further education in US, Zawadi Africa today boasts of a young generation of women ready to scale the heights in all spheres of leadership after attaining higher education in some of the world’s most prestigious learning institutions.

According to its website, Zawadi Africa seeks “to develop a strong pipeline for young women leaders for the region (and) enable talented young African women from financially disadvantaged backgrounds to further their education and return to Africa to pursue leadership positions in the community and in the Government”.

“I formed Zawadi Africa in 2002 to provide opportunities for academically talented students with strong leadership potential to attend colleges overseas and in Kenya,” Dr Mboya is quoted in a past interview.

“The concept I had for Zawadi Africa was inspired by the ‘airlifts’ that my father pioneered in the 1960s with US President John Kennedy.

Notable exceptions

“This project produced many leaders, the majority being men. The notable exceptions included Wangari Maathai,” she goes on.

Variously described as one of Kenya’s most brilliant ministers, the shrewdest political strategist, a most efficient organiser and administrator and the ablest government spokesman both at home and abroad, Tom Mboya met his death as he stepped out of the pharmacy owned by the Chhanis that fateful Saturday of July 5, 1969.

The Planning and Economic Development Minister had just returned from an official assignment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the previous day.

Had he wanted to, the charismatic 39-year-old minister could have easily connected a flight to London, where he had been invited for a conference at the University of Sussex on Monday, July 7.

However, his commitment to duty got the better of him, forcing him to turn down the invitation in order to attend to pressing government matters, only to meet his death.

It is during Zawadi’s tenth anniversary that its first batch of beneficiaries will graduate, and possibly, go for top leadership positions in the corporate, or like Tome Mboya, political spheres.

Ms Adhiambo said: “We at Zawadi are extremely proud of our achievements so far in offering opportunities to bright but needy girls.”