HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 1443320,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1443320/?format=api",
"text_counter": 90,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "own and get a number from a company called British American Tobacco (BAT) at that time, you ended up depending on somebody else who had more capacity than you. It happened that my family did not have the capacity to grow our own tobacco, therefore, we were working in what was then called then a “gog” to one gentleman that I still owe a lot of respect called Mr. Joshua Otieno. He was seen as the most successful farmer in our village because one of the biggest assets he owned was a bicycle. At that time, my brothers and sisters were suffering outside our village to get an education. I found myself as the oldest son with my sisters in the village at that time. My mother got sick and my dad was not in the village as well. He had gone to look for ways of supporting the family. When my mother got sick, I did not know how to even ride a bicycle. I went to Mr. Joshua Otieno, who was the person who could help us with his bicycle. I asked him to help me with his bicycle in order to get my mother to the hospital. Of course, I could not ride that bicycle, but I carried my mother to the hospital. I depended on Joshua's bicycle to take my mother to the hospital from the 3rd to 12th of that month. She was diagnosed with chronic malaria. When we went to the hospital on 12th in the morning, the doctor told me that my mother could not be treated there because that chronic malaria could only be treated in a referral hospital in Migori Town. They had the ambulance, but did not have the fuel. They asked me to go and look for Kshs2,000, so that we could take my mother to Migori District Hospital. Of course, I went home and found my father, but we did not have the Kshs2,000. I will never forget that image. At 11.48 p.m., I lost my mother to a simple disease called chronic malaria. This is because getting fuel for an ambulance was a problem. Today, as we talk about Generation Z, some people might see those young people as crazy and on TikTok, Facebook and social media spaces. However, if you sit with them, you will hear of stories, that mine could be the most little story of them all. These are stories of young people who have gone to school and are qualified, came back home to find their own siblings whom they call millennials or any generation whom have also gone to schools and qualified, but cannot make sense of their life. Some of them might be successful because their parents are successful. However, if you look at the lives most of them, they are everything to their parents. They are the only hope that their parents have. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in this House, we are privileged to have an insurance. However, some of these young people are the insurance for their parents. I can tell you for a fact, I have heard even Members of this House say that they are the pension for their parents. That their parents do not have anywhere to build, and when they get sick, they send them medicine. Therefore, as we reflect, we must acknowledge, as a House, that the root cause of what we are seeing in the street today in Kenya. I extend this to the President of this country. We know the root cause very well. It is economic emptiness and lack of income and jobs for young people in this country. They are the majority of this country, and yet they cannot get income and decent jobs simply because we have enabled a system where governance in this country cannot allow capital to reach those young people. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}