Winnie Wamuyu comes from a very poor village in the district of Nanyuki in Kenya. Her father left when she was young and her mother remarried. When Winnie was a grade nine student at Tigithi Secondary School, her mother told her to go to her neighbour’s house one night to pick up some paraffin. When Winnie arrived at the house, her neighbour locked her in the house for two weeks with the hope of getting her pregnant so she would be forced to marry him. He was twenty-eight; Winnie was thirteen. Winnie’s mother had arranged the whole thing.
What they did is illegal in Kenya. Girls must be sixteen years old before they can marry.
John Muchiri, the principal of Tigithi Secondary School, is the hero of this story. He noticed that Winnie was absent and asked a student where she was. He was told she had married an older man.
Muchiri was furious. He immediately called the police and went to the house. He pulled Winnie out but did not want to send her back to her mother so he used his own money to pay for her board at his school until he could find a donor. The neighbour was not punished because the justice system in Kenya is slow and onerous so John Muchiri and the policeman quietly threatened the man and left it at that.
PA-MOJA founder, Gillian Laprairie, who was working in Kenya at the time, heard Winnie’s story. She came to Langley Fine Arts School to appeal for funds; thus, Winnie became the first recipient of bursury funds raised by Langley Fine Arts School.
Now without a mother or father, Winnie continued her studies. In grade ten, her grades slipped and she began to skip school. John Muchiri was uncompromising. He told her she was expelled from his school permanently. She stayed with relatives and came crying to the school every day, begging to be let back in. He refused. Her relatives came and pleaded for him to reconsider. He told them she would never be a student at his school again.
John made Winnie wait for six weeks before he finally let her back in with the condition that this was her only chance – the next decision would be final.
When John tells the story, he laughs and says “Winnie will never know how much I cared about her and prayed for her success every day. She thinks I’m just a mean old principal.”
Winnie is now 26 years old. She graduated from Kenyatta University with a degree in computer studies. She is also a proud mother of a 2 year old son, Travis.
