Written By Ramadhan Kambi 📝
In what can be well said as a blessing to the hand that giveth, a 17-year-old girl from Kilifi, who is among the top students who scored A plain in the just-released Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination, has begun a campaign to raise funds to equip a secondary school in her area.
She wants to buy laboratory equipment for the Menyheart secondary school located in Mijomboni area within Malindi sub-county of Kilifi County so as to enable students to get access to facilities and boost their performance in sciences.
Shirley Karisa Nadzua, 17 who schooled at Kenya High School, believes there are bright minds in Kilifi County but cited the lack of critical infrastructure in most schools as the major cause of poor performances.
She says particularly the girls can do well in sciences, but due to the lack of facilities in schools, they have always been performing dismally.
Her dream of fundraising to build a modern laboratory at Menyheart secondary school began in October 2020 hoping if it is renovated and equipped there would be many more like her and it will be a plus for Kilifi County.
Journalists met Nadzua at her home in Kilifi in the company of her mother and close relatives during celebrations of her victory.
Her KCSE results show that she scored a clean A of 81 points with English scoring A -., Kiswahili A, Maths A Biology A, Physics A, Chemistry A- Geography B-plus, and Agriculture B-plus.
Clearly, the young girl managed to score As in all sciences and that’s a dream for her to see all girls performing better in Kilifi.
During the interview, Nadzua said she began the project of renovating Menyheart laboratory in 2020 because like many other schools lack the facilities like the ones she managed to access while studying at Kenya High school.
“Menyheart is one of the schools which has a dilapidated laboratory so I started a project to renovate it with the support from the area MP Hon. Owen Baya,” she said.
However, Nadzua said the project came to a standstill in 2021 as she had to go back to school and it was bulky to deal with the projects and at the same time concentrate on her studies.
She had to suspend it but now that she is done with form four, she has embarked again to complete the mission.
“It will be my joy to see Menyheart have a laboratory which will not only be used by Menyheart Secondary school but the whole area in Gede and help many more students to get quality education, especially in the sciences,” she said.
Asked what drove him to come up with the project she said while in school she was challenged by many people that Kenya lacks some professionals and have to be imported.
Nadzua said as a person from Kilifi she thought of an idea to help build Kilifi which in away would be building the country at large in some way by ensuring locals get quality education.
To her quality education starts at a lower level and especially secondary for one to be able to get a good foundation.
“If someone gets a good foundation in sec0ndary school they would be able to take the big courses such as medicine, engineering and wouldn’t have wouldn’t have to import labor from outside the country,” she said.
Nadzua wants to study Bio-Medical Engineering which is in the field of medicine and Physics so as to be part of the many engineers and few female engineers in Kenya.
Regarding the KCSE results, Nadzua revealed that she received her results while at Kivukoni area within Kilifi while celebrating her cousin’s birthday adding that it was quite a joy to continue the celebrations after the victory.
“My family expected this but I had some doubts but that’s what happened I got an A,” she said.
Nadzua said after finishing her examinations one of the invigilators called her and told her she had heard her name that she was from Kilifi.
“She said she would be proud to hear a girl from Kilifi has also scored an A because in our county very few girls have the opportunity to get an education,” she said.
She said currently the girl child education in Kilifi was now slowly coming up even if it took more time than in the rest of the counties but she was proud to be among those who had excelled in Kilifi.
Her Mother Karembo Mweni who was present said in 2017 her daughter made her proud in 2017 when she topped her school by scoring 440 marks in KCPE and now, she had done it again by scoring A in KCSE.
Mweni said her daughter r enrolled in the Lincoln leadership program during the Covid-19 pandemic period because they had so many online classes and because of the lockdown everything was about books and she needed something to break the monotony.
“So, I got to know about the program I enrolled her in the program, and in the program, they were encouraged to do projects to give back to the community and in the project, they were told to choose from the sustainable development goals (SDGs),” she said.
The proud mother said her daughter chose quality education which is how her project of renovating Menyheart started.
At first, she said the daughter reached out to the principal of the school who sent a Video clip of the dilapidated laboratory.
During the pandemic, she said Nadzua managed to mobilize people and did a zoom meeting and went on with the project of mobilizing funds up to January when she suspended it to resume classes.
“Last year they had four school terms so she had to put everything on hold, but when I picked her up from school, she was like mum I want to continue from where I stopped, so I thank God that she has the zeal to give back to the community,” she said.
Mweni said her daughter does not take it for granted that she was privileged to be in a school where she has all the facilities that are why7 she wants other girls to have the same opportunities in Kilifi.
Her daughter’s joy is to see girls be in a school where they can see a test tube during the class time a Bunsen burner, during the class hours but not during the KCSE.
“My appeal is to different stakeholders in the educational sector the CDF of Kilifi North Member of Parliament that they can bring funds and build the laboratory,” she said.
Karisa Fagio who is Nadzua’s father and Ex-Husband of Mweni could also not hide his joy for the outstanding performance of the daughter.
To him, the girl has really put a mark on his life as his second daughter.
“I did not expect her to fail but I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did not get such results because she is a girl who is outgoing and has always emphasized on education,” she said.
Fagio said, unlike other children Nadzua always asks for money for books before moving on to other things like Pizza or chips.
Among her children, he said she had different characters as the other would ask for luxuries like Piza or chips.
The father said he always struggled to ensure he provides anything that was required in school and she made him proud since the time of KCPE and now again she had excelled in secondary.
