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{
    "id": 960419,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/960419/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 230,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13219,
        "legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
        "slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, when you retreat to your family in this era, where we have cross-cultural marriages, your spouse may end up putting you to task by asking why you did that. These are situations that require us, as a country, to put in place measures that ensure that we have enough counselling services for our people serving in the armed forces. Madam Temporary Speaker, President Moi was a very wise President, despite some of the negative things he did in this country. He came up with schools that were dedicated to people serving in the armed forces. Why did he do so? It is because you can be sent out of the country only to come and find that the children you left behind never went to school. However, President Moi decided to take care of these kinds of situations, and established the Moi Forces Academy. It is a very good school that serves members of the Air Force at the Moi Air Base (MAB) in Eastleigh. There is also the Memorial Hospital along Mbagathi Way. However, Madam Temporary Speaker, after President Moi exited power, I have not seen any initiative to come up with mechanisms meant to ensure that we have facilities dedicated to the care of people who have served in the armed forces. This Motion now seeks to extend these services to residential areas, where people serving in the armed forces reside. This is a very good Motion. You will be surprised that the people who serve in the armed forces do not enjoy the normal life that we live. For instance, look at the food they eat. I was talking to a friend of mine who had been sent to serve in a United Nations (UN) Peace Keeping Force. He told me that for the entire period he was there, he forgot about ugali, as he was surviving on biscuits, water and energy drinks. That, in itself, is something that can cause a lot of stress to any human being. Let us also be cognizant of the fact that the people we send out to serve in the peace keeping missions are young people and they are not used to these hardships. They are recruited at the early age of 20s, and by the time they are 25 years old, they are enlisted and sent out of the country away from their spouses. You can imagine somebody staying away from a spouse they have just married for three years. When you come back, you do not know what to expect. When you come back to surprises, you need counselling. That is why we are seeing increased cases of suicide. We do not want to lose people who have volunteered to serve our country, and who play a very important role. Stress is a killer. Many schools today have employed counsellors for our children. Maybe what is stressing the child is a parent who has failed to buy them a phone, denied them a chance to watch a movie over the weekend, or a parent who has denied a friend to visit his child. Because of that, we employ counsellors. There are dedicated counsellors in many schools for our children. What about people who serve in the armed forces? You can imagine a situation where two pilots leave Eastleigh Airbase for duty. They greet their colleagues and go out to do their job with the hope of coming back. However, one of you does not make it back. That leaves you with a lot of trauma, because you ask yourself what you could have done to save your colleague. The kind of occupational hazards that face our policemen and people serving in the military call for a dedicated service that can offer counselling to them. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}