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{
    "id": 517283,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/517283/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 303,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "March 10, 2015 SENATE DEBATES 43 Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I also rise to contribute to and support this Bill. This is because it is coming at a time when my previous colleague did mention that we are at crossroads where the spirit of harambee is being misused by some people in this country, yet it was meant to uniquely define Kenya. If you recall the words that were spoken at Independence, the first President of the Republic of Kenya and his colleagues, did speak and talk of harambee – the spirit in which an African was supposed to take leadership of their own people and land and chart their own destiny. Kenya was colonized by the United Kingdom (UK) and a number of very good farming land was occupied by the “white” people. It was not very easy that they were going to still continue to support the new leadership that had come in to take over the reigns to lead themselves. So, it was so noble that those leaders coined the word “harambee”, to mean rallying the people of Kenya together, to build this young nation and bring together the over forty tribes under one umbrella. It is through the harambee spirit that most of the buildings that you see standing – the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) and all the others during those five years from 1963 to 1969 – were built. This is when that rallying call brought everybody together. harambee calls upon, and depends on the spirit of the power of numbers, where when you bring the unity of the people together, there is nothing that you cannot do. This is why this spirit of harambee permeated from village to village, community to community, province to province and district to district at that time. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in my county to date, I have 520 primary schools which were built through the spirit of harambee, support of the church and some donors; no Government hand. If anybody runs around saying we need to remove the spirit of harambee so that we replace it with some genuine hand of Government, I do not know which Government that is, unless it is one that is led by completely different people and not Kenyans. Over 82 secondary and 900 nursery schools in my county were purely built out of the harambee spirit funds. To us, this was like a godsend opportunity to be able to marshal our ability and our resources. When we combine our resources, we can scale the heights. You also remember that we had some universities like Moi and Maseno universities which were built through the harambee spirit. The then President would lead during those harambees and other leaders would join in. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, some people began to mess up with the proceeds from the harambee spirit, but that does not mean that we should do away with harambee. We should craft regulations and laws that can create a niche for harambee and make it a Kenyan product that can brand the way Kenya is today. During that time, I know some senior Members can remember that in Tanzania, they were talking about Ujamaa . It modeled the spirit of unity in that country while Kenya was driven with the spirit of harambee and we have thus come this far. Previously we had ranking of students and schools according to their performance in Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). However, just because of some minor malpractice, we have ended up removing what was making Kenya a unique choice of education destination. People like a The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}