Family and Livelihood
Our families are smallholders, straddling the old with the new by growing for their own subsistence needs and engaging in a variety of other endeavours for cash income. Thus, most grow crops specifically for sale and engage in various small-scale trading ventures.
But, nothing is stable in the rural economy. Kuria has experienced great shifts in livelihood over the last thirty years. In the recent past, most families relied on tobacco farming and selling cattle to raise the huge sums of money needed for school fees. Both options are now over. With population increase, pasture has decreased, and so have the cattle. Then, in 2015, the tobacco company pulled out of the area leaving the farmers without an equivalent high value crop. With economic options curtailed, raising the money to pay school fees has become ever more difficult.
This has affected families in many ways. There are now large variations in wealth. In the past, it would have been true to say that most, given reasonable health and fertility and a bit of luck, could achieve honourable life objectives, measured then in terms of descendants and cattle. This is no longer the case. Poverty now is a different kind of reality, with some households struggling to feed themselves while others have achieved a standard of living inconceivable thirty years ago.
Our families come from the lower end of the spectrum. For them, education is increasingly seen as the main means of gaining a living for their children.
Families
Our students come from families of all kinds. In considering bursaries, we pay attention to the grade students achieve in their primary leaving exams (KCPE) as academic ability is crucial to success at secondary level. We also pay attention to the particular circumstances of the family. We are happy to say that the most of our students come from those able, though often with great difficulty, to raise the money to pay partial fees. But, families are all different.
Households in Kuria ideally develop into large three generational extended families, with sons staying on in their father’s homestead until their own children are old enough to provide for the defence and other needs of an independent home. Households thus vary hugely in size. A large polygamous homestead may house 40 people or more whereas a newly independent male-headed household would typically be of no more than 6 to 8.
Kuria homestead
Some households fall outside this pattern and are woman-headed. These are formed where a man has died, or where he has deserted his wife or, in the special case of nyumba mboke, he has never existed.
Woman-headed households
There are many widows in Kuria. This is not just because of the burden of disease in a community where typhoid, malaria and often cholera are endemic but because many men are killed in inter-clan cattle raiding. Thus, many widows are young. In Kuria, they do not remarry as death does not extinguish the marriage and they go on to manage the estate left by their husband and bring up their children alone. They are thus in much the same position as those women married to a house without a son (nyumba mboke). This is a marriage option unique to Kuria where a barren woman or couple can arrange a marriage to bring a daughter-in-law to the home to provide grandchildren to inherit the land. Independent of a husband and thus male authority, these women, as they age, are often very active in community affairs and exert an important influence.
A number of our students are daughters of widows.
Susan, whose husband was killed by raiders, had three daughters and was a campaigner against FGM. As she had not had them circumcised, she was determined that they should be educated and so able to obtain professional employment and support themselves.
Another student was the youngest daughter of a widow, whose husband also had been killed in a raid. This student was concerned about the reputation of her family as none of her brothers had succeeded at school and she felt that they were despised on this account. She impressed us with her determination and she proved her neighbours wrong.
We have also supported children of nyumba mboke marriages. Some women, however, are left with no such rights over land.
One of our hardship cases was the eldest daughter of Edith, a woman whose husband had married a second wife and then deserted her. She had no land and rented two rooms in a house in a small trading area and maintained herself and children by working on her neighbours’ fields for 150 Ksh a day, approximately, £1. With that, she had to pay rent and feed and clothe herself and her two children. There was no way she alone could raise the huge amount necessary for secondary school fees.
But, of course, it is not just these families that bear hardship. Misfortune and illness can come to all. A few of our students have been total orphans whose guardians have solicited our support. We have supported 3 orphans in recent years, one sponsored by a grandmother, another by an aunt and a third by a teacher who took pity on an exceptionally bright pupil.
Judith, a widow herself, supported 3 grandchildren orphaned by AIDS, and was determined to educate them. She was exceptionally resourceful and worked at whatever she could to earn money. She did some petty trading and grew tobacco, sugar cane and vegetables in her fields. As she has got older, like many other women recently, she also panned for gold in the artisanal gold workings that have developed near the old gold seams, abandoned by the British at Independence. Lighter work than digging but carrying health risks of its own. We supported one of her orphans and she has succeeded in putting all three through secondary school.
Panning for Gold
If you would like to know more about Kuria there are 3 short films on You Tube
Law and War in Rural Kenya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTryo8wvmho
4 minute trailer for a 65 minute film by Suzette Heald dealing with the rise of the Iritongo, a movement based on the traditional assemblies of the Kuria that arose to combat rampant cattle raiding.
Elizabeth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nJl2MKQGoQ&t=22s
5 minute film by Suzette Heald and James Uren
Set in Kuria District, Kenya, this film provides a portrait of Elizabeth, a widow who sells porridge to make a living. She endears herself to all by her good humour and willingness to give her time freely to the work of the community assembly. She is the treasurer of the assembly which has set up its own policing force to keep the peace in the community, following years of trouble with cattle raiding and gun crime.
A World in Passing
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=A+World+in+Passing
5 minute film by Suzette Heald and James Uren
This film set in Kuria, Kenya, features an elder of the Inchama, the conclave of ritual elders of each clan. He talks of the past and the protective and cursing powers by which they guarded their land. Alas, the present generation, as foretold, is disobedient and unruly. It no longer believes in their power and they can be disregarded.
But, nothing is stable in the rural economy. Kuria has experienced great shifts in livelihood over the last thirty years. In the recent past, most families relied on tobacco farming and selling cattle to raise the huge sums of money needed for school fees. Both options are now over. With population increase, pasture has decreased, and so have the cattle. Then, in 2015, the tobacco company pulled out of the area leaving the farmers without an equivalent high value crop. With economic options curtailed, raising the money to pay school fees has become ever more difficult.
This has affected families in many ways. There are now large variations in wealth. In the past, it would have been true to say that most, given reasonable health and fertility and a bit of luck, could achieve honourable life objectives, measured then in terms of descendants and cattle. This is no longer the case. Poverty now is a different kind of reality, with some households struggling to feed themselves while others have achieved a standard of living inconceivable thirty years ago.
Our families come from the lower end of the spectrum. For them, education is increasingly seen as the main means of gaining a living for their children.
Families
Our students come from families of all kinds. In considering bursaries, we pay attention to the grade students achieve in their primary leaving exams (KCPE) as academic ability is crucial to success at secondary level. We also pay attention to the particular circumstances of the family. We are happy to say that the most of our students come from those able, though often with great difficulty, to raise the money to pay partial fees. But, families are all different.
Households in Kuria ideally develop into large three generational extended families, with sons staying on in their father’s homestead until their own children are old enough to provide for the defence and other needs of an independent home. Households thus vary hugely in size. A large polygamous homestead may house 40 people or more whereas a newly independent male-headed household would typically be of no more than 6 to 8.
Kuria homestead
Some households fall outside this pattern and are woman-headed. These are formed where a man has died, or where he has deserted his wife or, in the special case of nyumba mboke, he has never existed.
Woman-headed households
There are many widows in Kuria. This is not just because of the burden of disease in a community where typhoid, malaria and often cholera are endemic but because many men are killed in inter-clan cattle raiding. Thus, many widows are young. In Kuria, they do not remarry as death does not extinguish the marriage and they go on to manage the estate left by their husband and bring up their children alone. They are thus in much the same position as those women married to a house without a son (nyumba mboke). This is a marriage option unique to Kuria where a barren woman or couple can arrange a marriage to bring a daughter-in-law to the home to provide grandchildren to inherit the land. Independent of a husband and thus male authority, these women, as they age, are often very active in community affairs and exert an important influence.
A number of our students are daughters of widows.
Susan, whose husband was killed by raiders, had three daughters and was a campaigner against FGM. As she had not had them circumcised, she was determined that they should be educated and so able to obtain professional employment and support themselves.
Another student was the youngest daughter of a widow, whose husband also had been killed in a raid. This student was concerned about the reputation of her family as none of her brothers had succeeded at school and she felt that they were despised on this account. She impressed us with her determination and she proved her neighbours wrong.
We have also supported children of nyumba mboke marriages. Some women, however, are left with no such rights over land.
One of our hardship cases was the eldest daughter of Edith, a woman whose husband had married a second wife and then deserted her. She had no land and rented two rooms in a house in a small trading area and maintained herself and children by working on her neighbours’ fields for 150 Ksh a day, approximately, £1. With that, she had to pay rent and feed and clothe herself and her two children. There was no way she alone could raise the huge amount necessary for secondary school fees.
But, of course, it is not just these families that bear hardship. Misfortune and illness can come to all. A few of our students have been total orphans whose guardians have solicited our support. We have supported 3 orphans in recent years, one sponsored by a grandmother, another by an aunt and a third by a teacher who took pity on an exceptionally bright pupil.
Judith, a widow herself, supported 3 grandchildren orphaned by AIDS, and was determined to educate them. She was exceptionally resourceful and worked at whatever she could to earn money. She did some petty trading and grew tobacco, sugar cane and vegetables in her fields. As she has got older, like many other women recently, she also panned for gold in the artisanal gold workings that have developed near the old gold seams, abandoned by the British at Independence. Lighter work than digging but carrying health risks of its own. We supported one of her orphans and she has succeeded in putting all three through secondary school.
Panning for Gold
If you would like to know more about Kuria there are 3 short films on You Tube
Law and War in Rural Kenya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTryo8wvmho
4 minute trailer for a 65 minute film by Suzette Heald dealing with the rise of the Iritongo, a movement based on the traditional assemblies of the Kuria that arose to combat rampant cattle raiding.
Elizabeth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nJl2MKQGoQ&t=22s
5 minute film by Suzette Heald and James Uren
Set in Kuria District, Kenya, this film provides a portrait of Elizabeth, a widow who sells porridge to make a living. She endears herself to all by her good humour and willingness to give her time freely to the work of the community assembly. She is the treasurer of the assembly which has set up its own policing force to keep the peace in the community, following years of trouble with cattle raiding and gun crime.
A World in Passing
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=A+World+in+Passing
5 minute film by Suzette Heald and James Uren
This film set in Kuria, Kenya, features an elder of the Inchama, the conclave of ritual elders of each clan. He talks of the past and the protective and cursing powers by which they guarded their land. Alas, the present generation, as foretold, is disobedient and unruly. It no longer believes in their power and they can be disregarded.