Denis Ngatia-SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT

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December 2019 Update

http://https://youtu.be/UzfrUO2VEQo

Denis Ngatia Nyambura
Age: 16 years
Form: 2 (Grade 10 in 2019)
Tigithi Secondary School
Scholarship Started: 2018

Meet Denis…

Denis lives with his 70 years old grandmother and two cousins in a small village called Withare, Ngobit Ward, near Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

Dennis has lived with his grandmother since he was 8 months old. His mother, Esther Nyambura left him under the care of the grandmother claiming she has gone to Nairobi- the capital city- to look for greener pastures. According to the grandmother, that was the last they heard of her for the better part of 5 years.

Dennis was joining nursery school she returned home. This time pregnant with the second baby. After delivering the second born Nicholas,  she left but this time she didn’t leave him behind. After few years with no idea of her whereabouts, she returned home pregnant with the third born. After delivery, she left behind the last born, Winrose Waruguru who is physically disabled and Dennis. Winrose is currently in nursery school and undergoing therapy to reform her spinal cord.

Dennis considers his grandmother to be his mother. His mother is currently married but she never comes to check on her children. Dennis says he can’t go to live with her and that will be the last option because the last time he did that he was subjected to a lot of suffering and went days without food. This is because his stepfather claimed he was not the biological father and thus did not have to take care of him.

Dennis grandmother has another burden of her grandchild whose mother passed on when he was 5 years old. The boy is currently in class 7 through a sponsorship by the Catholic church. By the virtual of being an orphan, the boy receives four thousand Kenyan shillings ($50 CAD) every three months for his upkeep. This is what currently the family is depending on for food because the grandmother can no longer do casual works because of her old age and deteriorating health.

The family is leaving hard to mouth with no one to provide food for them. Dennis’ mother is nowhere to be found and does not bother to send upkeep money or visit her children. The grandmother has reared 10 chickens, she exchanges the eggs with corn flour and when there are no eggs, they have no otherwise but to sleep hungry.

Dennis would like to be an aircraft engineer when he grows up. He has been motivated to pursue this by the fact that he loves Mathematics and wants one day to fly a plane. He considers his greatest success completing primary school and joining secondary school. He has a great interest in leadership and he hopes he will get a leadership position in a secondary school. He was a school prefect in primary school and an altar boy in church. He also has a great sense of responsibility, this is evident because during school breaks he does casual jobs and the little he earns is used to buy food for the family.

In his free time, he loves playing football and volleyball. Chelsea is his favorite football club, someday,  he hopes to play for a local football club.

Given a chance to make a major change in his community, he would establish a water project seeing that water is one of their greatest challenges. During the dry season, which is most of the year, they walk 6 kilometers daily to fetch water.

Dennis would like to thank his donors in PA-MOJA and he promises to work hard and be disciplined. With a broad smile, he says  “were it not for this scholarship, I would be at home doing casual jobs and with time I would have ended up joining gang groups in my village or engage in drugs and substance abuse.”

Story and Images:

Grace Kibatha

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[one_third_last] Christmas Greetings,   A little bit more about Denis[/one_third_last]