For those who remember Kenya’s reputation as a beacon among African countries, its descent into poverty and kleptocracy is desperately sad.

Kenya needs leaders with a commitment to decency. When President Mwai Kibaki was elected in 2002, one of his first acts was to appoint an anti-corruption tsar, John Githongo. But six years on, Mr Githongo is in exile in Britain and a weary resignation pervades Kenya’s 40 million people, four million of whom live on the edge of starvation.

One group of people now see that it is up to them to provide an alternative to the political see-saw whereby the most powerful of Kenya’s 42 tribes – the Kikuyu, Luo and Kalenjin – come to power and advance only their own kind.

Within the country, Starehe – which means place of comfort – is increasingly becoming not just the name of a boys’ college, but a rallying cry for those who believe there is a better way to lead, one inculcated by an unlikely guru, Geoffrey Griffin.

In 1959 Mr Griffin, the ex-Army son of a British policeman, set up Starehe in the slums of Nairobi as a refuge for boys displaced by the MauMau insurgency. Starehe has grown into a school that takes Kenya’s poorest but brightest pupils – 1,200 boys and girls at any one time – and gives them not only a free, first-class education but a set of principles to match.

Over the assembly hall doors at the boys’ college are inscribed the words: “From those to whom much has been given, much will be required.”

Most of the school’s alumni have interpreted that as giving service in the professions. One third of the trainee doctors in Kenya’s public universities come from Starehe, a number that will swell once girls move on from the sister school opened in 2005. Others go on to become engineers, lawyers, accountants and teachers. But, seeing the plight of their country, Old Stareheans are coming to realise that even more is required.

The power of Stareheism as a force for good has stirred the optimism of old Africa hand Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, a former chairman of Shell and Anglo-American. He has known Starehe since 1966 and now supports the Starehe Future appeal to endow places and support a school that has much to teach not only its pupils, but the world, about ethical standards.

“People actually like behaving well, and the world wants to work with people who do,” he says. “In Starehe, there is no compromise. The last director wanted his son to go there but he couldn’t because his marks fell short by 0.05 per cent.” Boys enter the college aged 14 or 15, often barefoot and hungry, each chosen from more than 100 applicants per place on the basis of need and academic performance.

The vast majority come from homes where a dozen members of the family may live in one room, but at Starehe they know they will be able to create a better life, not just for themselves. “He is our light and our hope,” says the uncle of Richard Onyangu, 16, a pupil whose parents both died of Aids.

In class, the atmosphere is of quiet concentration. But it’s what they learn outside lessons that matters even more. After the teachers go home, the boys run the school. At 6am they start an hour’s cleaning; after school, they organise homework and activities. There are no discipline problems. Where disputes arise, they are settled at a baraza – parliament – where teachers often have to account for their actions.

There are few rules, above and beyond civilised behaviour and the need to speak only English or Swahili to avoid the perpetuation of tribal divisions. Anyone who uses their local language is made to learn 60 lines of Shakespeare overnight.

After four years, they emerge with not only some of the best results in the country – each year they compete for top of the league table with Nairobi’s best private schools – but a commitment to the Starehean Way. “Stickability was one of the concepts Griffin drummed into us,” says Raphael Tuju, an Old Starehean who was foreign minister until 2007 when he lost his parliamentary seat. He now advises President Kibaki on ethnic matters.

“Griffin taught us, if you do the right thing, you must be prepared to stick with the consequences,” says Twalib Ali, the country’s leading sugar trader, who supports 10 girls and 10 boys through the colleges. “I have not offered sweeteners, even though I have lost business in the process. But, if you are honest, people learn to trust you. It is your good name that matters most in this increasingly global world.”

“This is a corruption-free zone,” says the sign outside Nairobi University. Since George Magoha, 57, became vice-chancellor six years ago, he has tried to give some meaning to that notice.

The university used to be riven by strikes and rumours of cheating. In the past five years, managers have become accountable to students, strikes have ceased, and student numbers have risen from 25,000 to 46,000.

Lecturers’ pay has risen from £350 to £2,000 a month and academics have returned from abroad. Imbued with the Starehe work ethic, Mr Magoha starts work at 7am and still practises as a surgeon. “Griffin said ‘If you are going to clean a toilet, clean it so no one can clean it better’,” he said.

Old Stareheans’ main sorrow is that they cannot between them raise enough money to endow places at the school to keep it going in perpetuity, so they need the Telegraph‘s help. It’s not self-interest that prevents them finding £15,000 to endow each place, but the responsibility each feels for those who depend on them personally.

Raphael Tuju is one of 18 children from a poor rural area. He has not only helped his extended family, but built two schools.

The level of dependency is crushing. The government provides Kenya’s poor with nothing: families have to pay for water, even for the use of a latrine. Contraception is beyond their means, and so is the maize porridge on which they subsist because drought and strife have caused food prices to triple in two years.

Richard Onyangu is acutely aware of his country’s problems. “If there was more equitable use of resources it could reduce corruption. But I worry. My family depend on me and I must look after them, but I also want to do the right thing.”

With Starehe principles to guide him, he will find a way.

To make a donation to Starehe, or any other of the Telegraph’s four Christmas charities:

1 Call 0870 043 3759

2 Visit www.telegraph.co.uk/charity,

3. or by telephoning 0800-117118 on Sunday, December 13, when Telegraph staff will be taking readers’ calls between 10am and 6pm. Calls are free.

Story on:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/telegraphchristmasappeal

There is a saying in my mother tongue on the folly of eavesdropping on people. After my experience this morning I fully understand the reason for the warning.

Let me start from the beginning. I resumed work today after a two-week sick off.

I have been bed-ridden with a severe bout of Malaria.

I had all the symptoms — from a fever to a running stomach to panic attacks — for a moment I thought I was about to meet my maker.

I never thought the day would come when I would look forward to working, but today the day did indeed come.

In my excitement, I reported to work at 7 am.

I locked myself in the office and begun working on my laptop.

Half an hour later I felt very thirsty and decided to walk to the tea room for a refreshing cup of tea.

Just before I opened the door, I realised that the entire cleaning team was having their daily dose of morning tea and gossip.

Based on my experiences with Peninah the cleaning woman, I have come to realise that cleaners have lots of information to give.

My belief was reinforced when I heard my name pop up again and again.

Since my interest had been sufficiently piqued, I hid my frame in a vantage corner where I could stay unnoticed as they spoke.

One particular buxom woman (the one who cleans my office) had the whole room in a trance as she mouthed a very juicy story.

I could not believe my ears when she said that my former PA had asked her to place a pouch filled with mitishamba in the bottom drawer of my desk.

Her entire audience let out a collective gasp as she said, “the very next day, Bwana Josphat got very unwell.” She went on to say that my former PA was determined to hound me out of the office by ensuring that I get too ill to perform.

I was tempted to walk in and say, “nonsense!” and fire all of them.

Of course I lack the powers to do so since all the cleaners are contracted.

I stealthily walked out of my corner and tiptoed back to my office and pretended to work.

Looking back, a part of me did not believe one word of the conversation.

After all, mosquitoes cause Malaria not powdered potions.

However, my mother’s fears regarding witchcraft kept ringing in my ears.

I find it also too much of a coincidence that I got sick soon after the portion was allegedly placed in my drawer.

The other side of my brain would say that perhaps the cleaning woman was just making it all up to score points with her co-workers.

Finally, I decided to put my doubt to rest by opening the drawer.

My bottom drawer contains an assortment of old papers, handbooks and even a pair of shoes.

I had to dig very deep and remove everything before I could see what was at the bottom.

As sure as the sky is blue, I found a tiny bundle of polythene paper placed firmly in a corner of my desk drawer.

I decided not to take any chances with the portion.

In fact, I decided to go and throw it far away into the ocean.

I shut down my computer, switched off the lights and went to the parking lot.

I drove to the seaside and hurled the annoying bundle into the ocean.

On my way back, I decided to find a way of limiting cleaners’ access to my office.

However, if I did that it could raise suspicion.

So I decided to give the impression that all was well and let things stay as they were.

When I walked into the office I bumped into my very shocked cleaning woman.

I had to resist the temptation to smugly tell her “your magic cannot work one me!” She put on a big smile and even thanked the Lord for my good health. What sarcasm!

Source: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com

By Wallace Kantai

For most of us, any association with the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) thankfully ends when one is done with the immense stress that is the KCSE exam.

Apart from the time a few months later when we collect our certificates, the KNEC often just serves as a reminder of the stressful months of study before the big exam.

For Sidney Wafula, the KNEC served as his first port of call career-wise after high school.

It was not the most glamorous of jobs, though – certainly nowhere as exalted as his current position: ‘My first stab at employment was right after high school. I was privileged enough to be employed as a clerk at the Kenya National Examination Council doing all sorts of manual jobs including packing boxes of examination answer sheets for KCSE candidates, loading question papers into trucks and entering candidate details on spreadsheets. That was great fun’. His salary? Sh104.50 a day.

Wafula has moved on from those days, into more rarefied circles.

He’s now Head of Operations – Finance, for British American Tobacco (BAT) Nigeria Hub.

The role is wider than just dealing with money matters – according to him, the role ‘entails giving strategic and operational finance support to the Operations arm of BAT in West Africa.

The operations arm spans the full end-to-end supply chain from planning to delivering product to 14 end markets around West Africa’.

Old boy

So how do we reconcile the Wafula who was lugging boxes in a dusty KNEC warehouse to the Wafula who makes million-dollar decisions covering operations across an entire subcontinent?

It helps to take a bit of time to trace the path his career has taken.

Wafula is an old boy of Alliance High School, back in the early 1990s.

He then joined the Catholic University of Eastern Africa for a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting.

At the same time, though, he was earning his CPA qualification at what was then Strathmore College, and the Vision Institute of Professionals.

He wasn’t patient enough to wait to graduate from university to put his new accounting skills into practice.

He joined the former Coopers & Lybrand as an audit assistant.

(It all came about from his alacrity in responding to Jim McFie’s offer to his students of an opportunity at a blue chip accounting firm, one Friday afternoon).

The role still involved lifting boxes, although, this time, thankfully, ‘I didn’t have to lift boxes into trucks- all I had to do was lift box files for the audit seniors into client sites’.

Coopers & Lybrand opened doors for him.

After three months, Barclays Bank came calling – which was lucky seeing as the C&L internship was coming to an end.

He served as a clearing clerk for a couple of months, before the final months of university meant that he had to hunker down and concentrate on his studies.

As is all too depressingly common in Kenya, graduation – even from a respected institution and with stints in blue-chip firms under his belt – didn’t help Wafula from having to ‘tarmac’ for a few months.

Relief came in the form of offers from PricewaterhouseCoopers (Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand had merged in 1998), and Procter and Gamble. :“I went with my gut and decided to join PwC,” he says.

He was part of an elite incoming group at PwC.

The interview process had winnowed 1,500 applicants down to a freshman group of 25.

This was a crucial part of his career, and one he remembers fondly as it imparted lessons that still come in handy. The role was “very intense.

Inspiring mentors

It was characterised by lots of pressure to deliver work in relatively short timelines and with relatively little scope for error.

Lots of people were made and broken, plus it gave me an insight into corporate politics which I have later learned is an integral part of successful work life”.

Wafula rose through the ranks, and got promoted every year until June 2003, when he was appointed Audit Manager.

The world then opened up to him.

He was recommended for secondment to the PwC United Kingdom office.

It was a slight step backward: “I got demoted one level as was customary with secondments from Africa into the UK. I was fortunate enough during my career to have met some inspiring mentors, some of who had been through this hurdle before, and used their advice, together with my personal determination as motivation to prove that I belonged as a manager. True to this determination, I got promoted back to Manager during the next round of promotions in June 2004”.

He was then moved from the PwC office in Leeds to Deloitte & Touche in London.

All this time, however, he was seeking the challenge of being in the operations of a multinational, with the eventual aim of rising to the top of such a company.

He had kept contacts from the days of auditing BAT, and when he put out feelers to senior management back in Kenya, he was made an offer to be the Audit Manager for the East African Community and the Horn of Africa.

It was a time of fairly momentous change as he also got married to his fiancée Laura.

Significant mark

He says that joining BAT was the best career move he ever made.

“During the three years and three months I have served, my role was expanded to include the Indian Ocean Islands to become the Audit Manager for the East Africa Zone. In March 2008, I made a lateral move into mainstream Finance to become Finance Shared Services Manager for East Africa Zone.” The role in Nigeria was a natural next step.

For anyone trying to make a significant mark on the African business scene, Nigeria is the perfect challenge.

Its population is more than a hundred million, ranging from the multi-(dollar) millionaires on the Lagos islands to some of the world’s poorest people, and with a huge diversity in population.

He still looks at Kenya as home, and he says he would come back, but only as a part of the progression of his career.

The main attraction of Kenya for him is for their son Silwa: ‘I would also like him to experience the Kenyan culture first hand so it would be good to settle back in future.”

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