Every time my son is angry, I tell him baby you are carrying very big rocks you need to get them off your back and we work on it together because today even an empty rack sack is heavy now imagine one filled with massive heavy rocks?

We all carry rocks from past experiences, from harsh words, to just the daily stresses of life that we don’t know how to get rid of. So we carry them along and it gets heavy to go through life.

I have come to accept that it is easier said than done to off load the rocks. We want to not just carry our rocks but also hide them in our rucksack, keep them close to our hearts and life. Sometimes we know that letting them go will hurt those we love. So we just carry them. Sometimes we feel they are a part of our lives, our history. But they are not. History can be left on a shelf to refer to and reflect. Not on your back. And if it’s a great part of your life, then bring it forward and store it into your heart and share it. Don’t carry the weight. Even a rucksack gets heavy.

So what’s on your rucksack? How are you going to reduce the weight? How are we going to help each other take longer strides? You know you cannot take the strides you want with all that weight on your back. Don’t kid yourself. I did. It’s a waste of hours, years and generations.

Countries also carry rocks that stop the country moving forward, Kenya has rocks from colonel wrongs, to land issues, to poverty and hunger, corruption, internally displaced citizens and as we had more to the rucksack we stop Driving KENYA.

Let us get back to you and I and our individual rocks, is it not time to let go and continue the journey through life?

My real challenge in my community service was when I visited the slum areas of Korogocho, Mukuru and Kibera in Nairobi and came face to face  with abject poverty, despair and  extreme poverty hunger.  That picture stuck in my mind and has been my drive in the many of the projects I  have started or intend to get involved in.

This is what drove me to start Driving Kenya Foundation a charitable foundation whose sole purpose is to eradicate  extreme poverty in our country. So as a result of this we needed a vehicle through which donations would be made. So One In A Million was launched as an online portal to register membership and eventually start receiving funds for subscribers. With a committed group of people we can make a difference.

Get involved and Register at One In A Million site!

It was a Saturday morning like any other to me and I was going about my normal business. My day was interrupted by a phone call from the head of my Landscaping department, telling me a pregnant woman was in labor in the park, and asked that I come right away.

Some of my landscape workers, former ex-Street boys, were by the highway waiting to flag me down. They led me into the park by foot, since traffic would have put my arrival much later. Two women in the park had taken control of the situation delivering a beautiful baby girl to a laboring young woman. Within seconds, the baby was turning blue and the only thing to wrap the baby in was a head scarf. By this time, I held the baby, covered in blood, as the two women delivered the placenta. Read the rest of this entry »

How then can we help?

What I want is to enroll Kenyans and friends of Kenya to pull together for Kenyans through contributions in these three areas.

1. A donation through One In A Million of at least Kshs100 per month from one million of us in the Kenya population will go to great length to alleviate extreme poverty in our nation.
2. Contribution by groups of 10,000 Kenyans at Omega10000 for investment in other business ventures.
3. And a payment of just 1 shilling for brand and consumer participation in poverty reduction.

Register where you feel most suited, if you care enough and would like to be part of the effort to reduce poverty in our country then hang with me.

I have the drive and determination to make all this succeed and have and intend to continue surrounding myself with people of integrity all of whom shall own the projects and work with a common vision. Do not take the back seat. Get on the bus and get involved.

In these hard economic times even the rich are behaving like they need aid. They justify cutting back on charity or even investing. I say it’s the wrong approach stop behaving like a pauper when you really living like a king in comparison. Okay so you can’t travel first class, is there anything wrong with business or economy? You are still in the category with the clarion call- I’ve made it! – your home still enjoys three square meals, a fancy car, a wardrobe, an occasional holiday, a job or business, a bank account, assets, an occasional drink or meal with the guys and girls to work out the stresses of life, a gym membership to work out the excesses, its your life and its nothing less then a success. Don’t stop uttering these words I’ve made it – to avoid the call or responsibility of being part of the solution.

Please visit your chosen project above and register and give me hope that we can avert a revolution and be proud I mean really proud of being Kenyan!

16.5 MILLION KENYANS LIVE IN POVERTY. That is why we should care.

Well it’s very simple – DO WE WANT A REVOLUTION? ARE WE VICTIMS OF CRIME? ARE WE LIVING IN FEAR OF CRIME? DO WE CARE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? DO WE CARE ENOUGH TO SHARE?

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean we spoon feed the less fortunate. But when one is in ICU you have to feed them until they have regained their own strength and that is what we have to do. This blog is about knowing the driver and the direction to where I feel we should be going together. Join me as a passenger and when I tire take the wheels as this bus has to get to its destination with all the passengers content!

I am sure some of you are reading this and going I pay my taxes, I tithe, I help my extended family, I give a few coins every month to the poor on the street, I employ a few people etc etc . I know you do! But look around you, in your neighborhood there is a slum. It is growing bigger, the conditions are getting worse, and all our collective effort this far has not made visible difference.

A recent study that we commissioned through Adopt A Light on the impact of the lighting in the slums posed the question “how do you feel about the rich. The answer went like this “they don’t care about us, we don’t exist for them after we done the slaving for them”

I see a relationship between the violent crimes and this perception. I see crime increasing and the youth continuing to being gunned down. These young men are children, fathers, brothers, and providers of their family and no matter how hard we judge them, they are a loss to someone who will have a bone to pick with us if not now, in the future?

Besides poverty, hatred, there is another reason why crime is escalating and that is drugs. Drugs are consumed so readily among the poor, damaging the brain, once addicted! They will kill for it! Many people who have been car jacked say the same thing, the men where young, educated, and stoned.

So I have put together this website and many others sites that I will unveil to you in time, as a platform for you and I to connect and drive this vision to a bigger picture of a Perfect Kenya by 2015.

When it comes to poverty we have to take the same approach to invoke the need and the urgency to take action through a lifetime commitment to be part of the solution!

Well it’s simple. I am matured, a bit too late. I have realized that there is so much wrong amid our lives and its time to act. The truth is it’s too darn late. I wish I had the strength and the resources to have addressed poverty sooner! But what keeps me on track is the saying – it’s never too late?

I believe we have serious problems in Kenya and we desperately need to start chatting – honesty being the key word. We need to chat to the point where it (our honesty) comes out. We are a self destructive nation that believes going to church every Sunday or to the mosque or temple makes it all right? And when that is done we are back to being who we are until the next hour with the Almighty which I call living the big lie…amid all the wrongs. We also have convinced ourselves that we are great and everything is great too and all the problems are the colonials, our politicians, the donors, or just someone else’s problem to fix? It’s called passing the buck!

So why this blog? Poverty is our problem to fix! And if we don’t address it with the urgency it deserves then I liken the post election violence to just a tip of the iceberg or rather a trailer to a horror movie that has yet to begin! At this point I want you to take a deep breath and read the words of a great man:

“The mother of revolution and crime is poverty” by Aristotle the Ancient Greek Philosopher.

A point to ponder; look around you…Is poverty on the decrease? Is Vision 2030 working? Are we truly on course with the world leaders pledge under goal No. 1 of the Millennium Development Goals that is – To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by the year 2015?

Maybe these questions can make us examine our individual roles as Kenyans in addressing these issues by brain storming and coming up with solutions. This is at least a start to our proactive stance!