Ex-street child educates vulnerable students

Flung into one of the Muyenga corridors is a two-storied building. It is in a quiet neighbourhood pervaded with high perimeter walls that divide one home from the other. Known as a high end part of the Kampala City, Muyenga is home to the business moguls and well-placed individuals.
The 11am intense drizzle drenched me and my photojournalist this Friday mid-morning as we made our way into the gates of the house. A man, youthful, wearing skinny pair of blue jeans, a floral blue shirt and black sunglasses stretched his arm to usher us in.

He is humble, amiable and warm. I could already feel their affable familiarisation with my colleague.

Three blue plastic chairs are set for us in one of the corners of the compound. The sound, singing birds, the mooing of cows in a distance and the swaying of the tree branches to the wind give the azure of the environment a profound juxtaposition from your common understanding of the normal noisy Kampala with the hooting of cars, humming of metals and blistering sounds of fabrication houses.

The compound is ghostly empty, save for a few youth. They pranced about doing a couple of things as others head to the house.

The preamble I had received was that the owner of the home held his heart on his sleeve and helped financially downtrodden children who pass their primary education exceptionally well. He finds them a school by talking to the heads of the different schools and takes care of their shopping and shelter when necessary.

Rescued by a stranger off the streets, he got a formal education in schools he had never dreamt of, and it is from that miraculous turn of events that he is inspired to help people who find themselves in his situation.

Emma Wanyama, 24, is using this elegant home to take care of 858 students, many of whom go to some of the top secondary schools around the country.

This is home to about 200 students who prefer to have their holidays in a conducive environment to study.

Humble beginnings
Just like many of these young men and women he takes care of, at 13 years in 2009, Wanyama had passed his Primary Leaving Education (PLE) at Nabichehe Primary School with Aggregate Five.
But that was all, he had no idea of what he was to do next.

His parents had a bitter split when he was only three months. That’s how he had ended up at his maternal grandparents; Agnes Nasiminyu and Vincent Wanyama whose name he takes after. His mother later remarried.

“I was happy at my grandparents but after Primary Seven, I needed more than the sweet potatoes and g-nut paste that they had to offer for my meals. I needed an education but who was going to give it to me?”

His uncles and aunts preferred he traced the roots to his father, since for them, he had become an inconvenience. He says this mounted insurmountable pressure on him but he could not picture life away from that home.

Chocking on his good PLE results, the family started pondering on how to help the best pupil of the district at the time. They convened a family gathering to find a way out.

“One of my cousins who stayed in Kampala extended an olive branch on behalf of the family. She promised to bring me to her home and eventually help me get a school to enroll,” narrates Wanyama.

The wrong turn
On their way to Kampala, he says he sensed a heated argument between his cousin and her husband about introducing another member to their already financially struggling family.

“I was not sure whether to ask what the problem is but all I knew was that my mission had hit a dead end.” he says.

“I and my cousin arrived in Kampala at about 7:30pm. She told me to wait for her at around Standard Supermarket and I never saw her again. I only figured out that I had been abandoned at 11pm when one of the guards approached me and asked whether I needed help,” he narrates thoughtfully.

In 2006, at nine, Wanyama had met his father on his death-bed, he had been shot during one of the election period. But since it was the first and last meeting, there was no attachment.

The day he was abandoned, the only treasures he held was his PLE pass-lip and his father’s death certificate. He would later use these two documents to get help from “Good Samaritans” on his way to nowhere.

Loyce Katisi, Wanyama’s mother is hesitant to share her side of the story but says she had been told her son had died on the streets.

“Every time I watched the news about someone that had died, I thought that could be my son. All I wanted was to at least bury him,” she says.

Thriving homelessly on the streets
“That January night is the longest I have ever had. The pavers were hard, the stones were pricking and impelling into my cold skin. I mourned and longed for my grandmother, I felt a vacuum in my heart and wailed the more. I wielded on hope that my cousin had forgotten and would pick me the following day. Hunger struck in the middle of the night, I helplessly ate from the rubbish pit,” Wanyama emotionally recalls.

When morning announced its arrival, Wanyama says he carried his dusty backpack and wandered southwards.

This became his routine for six months as he searched for casual jobs at construction sites where he earned between Shs6,000 and Shs8,000. He got through those kinds of venture but that was not his ambition.

“I had not given up. I didn’t want to bury by excellence in the small little earnings. I still had my eyes on someone who could help so I could ask anyone who cared to listen for any kind of favour to see me in school,” he says.

He slept in random places he deemed safe. One lucky day an officer at Nsambya Police barracks introduced him to the Children Center, here, he had an opportunity of being served with a meal of posho and beans every lunchtime.

But he did not want to settle for that either.

“I still had my result-slip with Aggregate Five and my father’s death certificate. They would help me prove to my would-be helpers that I needed to go to school but I was just incapacitated,” he thought.
Meeting the ‘Good Samaritan’
Wanyama narrates that on one Saturday morning, he felt unusually good. He dusted his tattered clothes from one of the incomplete buildings in Muyenga where he had spent that night. He dashed out and he was determined to first look for some help before getting a construction site where he would work that day.

At 9am, he knocked at a gate and the guard opened for him, out came one of the popular pastors with whom he shared his story.

“He fished out a Shs50, 000 note and handed it to me. I was satisfied and I knew my morning frenzy was not in vain after all. I later came to learn that the pastor was Prophet Samuel Kakande. That would be enough to take me for a few days,” he says.

Gratified with his early catch, he proceeded to get a quiet place to plan for his money. Upon that very spot, about three gates away, Wanyama’s life changing fortune struck and dazed his eyes.

The driver of a silver Mercedes-Benz waited to enter the gate and made up his mind to approach the occupant of the car, a gentleman stepped out to check the tyres.

“This was the only chance I had to him because if I waited for him to enter the gate, I would have interfaced the guard who could have distorted my information. I told him my story and he asked me to enter the house. I told him I wanted to go back to school,” he narrates.

After a long conversation, the gentleman, Daudi Luggya who he later came to know was a businessman gave him Shs150, 000 to go and get a place in my choice school, Naalya High School.

“He didn’t expect me to come back. He thought since he had given me the money I would be comfortable but I came back and told him what was required for me to go to the school,” he says.

After joining the school for Senior One, Luggya became Wanyama’s father as he would admit that he was driven by the zeal and discipline his new son exuded.

“I have helped many people,” says soft-spoken and charming Luggya, “I am a Rotarian. He was a brilliant boy and I saw this as an opportunity to help. He didn’t disappoint, he passed through school successfully. I am happy that he has become a man of responsibility.”

In 2017, Wanyama appeared on Daily Monitor’s cover page as one of the best students of the year when he passed with 20 points at St Mary’s High School Kisugu.
Entering into charity
The first time he went back to his home district in Manafa to announce to his relatives that he was still alive was after his Senior Four. On his trip, he met a boy who had performed well in PLE but was going through the same predicament as he did. That was the time he started thinking about giving back to those in a position he was once in.

He only had to wait until he could finish his Senior Six and raise some funds through his personal savings from a charity organisation he worked for during his vacation.

“The first student I took up was from my village. My father (Luggya) did not buy into the idea at first but I had to do it behind his back and like the say, they rest is history,” he says.

The fourth year medicine student at Makerere University says he is faced with the challenge of some schools which do not accept more than one student and he has to dig deep into his pocket from his farm proceeds.

Wanyama’s mother says her son was always inquisitive and kind-hearted.

“His grandfather has nicknamed him police officer because he used to ask a lot of questions. I am happy for what he has since become and I pray that God continues to use him,” Katisi, says.