Stanley Amin lost his father to a police bullet in the 2007 post election violence. He was only 8-years-old. His life changed forever.
After several tribulations and bad luck, Amin’s rudder directed him to Muhuru Bay, where he learned and practiced fishing for survival. He had found a new home. He went back to school, Rabwao Primary. He says that his new guardian, a husband of two wives, wanted him to fish first and then attend school later in the day. His two wives also mistreated him, making him leave unchased and drop out of school.
His next home was a Pentecostal Church pastor. The man of God took the young boy to school. He treated him well, he says.
“I did my KCPE in 2016 and scored 308 marks. The pastor took me to Cardinal Otunga High School in Kisii and paid my form one school fee,” he said.
He topped his form one exam, a thing he says didn’t go down well with the pastor.
“My new friends influenced me a lot. We dropped out and went to drink alcohol. I ran away from my new guardian’s home and went to stay with my friends,” Stanley Amin
“I think he was advised that I would later become successful and run away from him. So one evening, he told me: ‘I don’t think you might stay with me long,'” he said.
His pleas to have him as a son forever landed on deaf ears. True to the pastor’s words, at the beginning of 2018, when Amin was supposed to move to form two, the pastor failed to pay his school fees, forcing the young Amin to drop out of school.
His thoughts and body led him to Rapogi.
At Rapogi, he checked into a hotel for food. It is in this hotel where he met another man. He retold his story to him. Luckily, the man chose to take him back to school. He was enrolled at Uriri Boys High School, where he studied until the second term.
Then he succumbed to peer pressure that he had found at the school.
“My new friends influenced me a lot. We dropped out and went to drink alcohol. I ran away from my new guardian’s home and went to stay with my friends,” Amin said.
Like the Biblical prodigal son, Amin spent a year and a half in the cold. When the going got tough, he returned to his senses and called his sponsor, who he says, sent him fare to facilitate his journey back home.
At home, the guardian had new terms for his sponsorship.
“He said that I would not go to form two, where I had dropped out. Instead, he said that I would go to form four and sit the national exams for his son. If I managed a C+ and above, then he would also sponsor my studies,” he said.
Amin said the man’s son was struggling with grades. The man talked with the school’s administration, and they agreed to the national exams fraud scheme.
When the time to sit KCSE came in March 2021, Amin said the man bribed the supervisor and the invigilators to go along with the scheme.
“So when they would pass round checking details on the desk, they didn’t bother with mine. I did the exam uninterrupted. When the results were announced, I had scored a C plain. That marked the end of the deal with the guardian. He released me,” Amin said.
Amin later moved to Kisii, where he started doing the boda boda business at the Keroka stage. Sometimes, he would go to the matatu stage to persuade passengers to board a vehicle at a fee.
In mid-2021, while working at a matatu stage, he bumped into a mother and son. He had known both of them since he had seen them at Uriri Boys School. He narrated what had befallen him, and the mother offered to sponsor him, but at a different school.
She enrolled him at Gesure Secondary School in Nyamira County. The boy would operate from home. The arrangement fell apart after the first term of form three, and Amin was asked to leave.
“She accused me of using my phone too much and also going to a different church from hers. She was also brewing chang’aa and wanted me to taste it for her before she could package it for sale. I refused,” Amin said.
At that point, he picked up his belongings and went to stay with a pastor of a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. When the holidays were over, he went to school and explained what had happened to the school principal.
The principal, Samuel Ogeto, enrolled him in school as a boarding student. The school is both day and boarding. He also offered to sponsor his education.
“I listened to the boy’s story and sympathized with him. He is very clever and has a future. However, he faces a big financial challenge. He also has very good leadership skills and was elected the new school head boy,” Ogeto said.
Ogeto said that he is determined to sponsor his education to university, but the fact that he is retiring means that he might not accomplish that.
The school principal retired from service on 13th February. He says that his biggest heartache is Amin, as he is yet to find him a home and a sponsor. He’s appealing to people of goodwill to chip in and help Amin.
“He needs to be helped so that he can be independent and help others in the future,” Ogeto said.
Amin said he needed school and food the most, which he now has. His current problem is his university education fee and a place to call home.
“I know I will go to university. I don’t know where I will get my fee from. I also wish to have somebody to call father and mother and a home,” he said.