Mukhaye Muchimuti is an Aga Khan Foundation Scholar now attending the American University Master’s Degree program at its School of International Studies. Recently she sat down with the Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. Communications staff to talk about her life and the scholarship award.

I grew up in Nairobi, smack in the middle of a family of eleven: I have 5 brothers and 5 sisters. One thing that my family always emphasized was education. If you didn’t do anything else, you made sure that you succeeded academically. You gave it your all.

I feel very fortunate that I had parents who really pushed for us to explore ourselves in that way. My mother worked for the National Museums of Kenya, so I basically grew up in a museum. I was a bit of a science geek growing up. I was one of the few 8- or 9-year olds who were talking about Australopithecus Boisei, an early hominid.

My eldest brother went to school at Aga Khan High School for a year or two, so I knew a lot about the Aga Khan in the context of education and health care, but I didn’t meet anyone from the Aga Khan Foundation until later.

After high school in Nairobi, I received a scholarship to go to the International Baccalaureate program at the United World College in Waterford, Mbabane, Swaziland. There was a very diverse student body, which was a great way for me to begin understanding the world beyond Nairobi and Kenya.

One thing that surprised me at Waterford was the level of activism among the students. They would get up and express their ideas and stand by them. I grew up with the sense that you listened to adults and you didn’t disagree, out of respect. Now I saw you could, within a respectful context, challenge the status quo. It was activism and engagement with the world in a different way — and I loved that.

Growing up in Nairobi, volunteer work really interested me. My family lives very close to the large Kibera slum, and I got to interact a lot with the children there. At the United World College I had the opportunity to apply for the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Hundred Projects for Peace. She was marking her 100th birthday by funding 100 projects for peace; each project got ten thousand dollars. I was a member of the African Students’ Union, and a fellow Kenyan student came from the Samburu area of Kenya. All I knew about Samburu was that it was arid. She told me about her experience growing up and what it meant to lose so many hours every week looking for water.

That moved me to ask, “What can we do?” My friend Alice and I wrote a proposal for working with The Samburu Project, a small organization that aims to increase the area’s access to water. Our pitch was: “if you have a community that lacks the opportunity for its young population to get an education, you’re creating instability in the community. If as a child you spend all this time looking for water, you’re being denied the opportunity to get an education, and you then cannot earn a sustainable livelihood because you don’t have marketable skills outside of your community. That creates a lack of stability, a lack of peace.”

We got the grant! I traveled to Samburu that summer after they dug the well and talked to the women involved. The greatest reward was to hear from them about the impact of having a well. Before, they had miscarriages from hauling water when they’re expecting, and experienced side effects of doing all that heavy lifting. They talked about losing out on education hours and how girls fall behind in school. They talked about how having water meant that they could now have gardens and better nutrition. I hadn’t thought how far out that kind of a thing can impact a community. For me it was very rewarding to experience that and understand what it meant to gain something as seemingly as simple as a well.

Still, I walked away thinking, “What next?” Now I have taught five years, and came to the realization that my interests are in line with a development career. American University is a great school. I’d heard that the faculty at the School of International Studies were expert practitioners in the field and that struck me.

I don’t know what the future will bring, but one thing that I hope to do is start an after-school program for children in the Kibera slum, for example to provide adult mentors checking on their homework getting done, little things like that. This kind of mentoring would show them that there is more out there, that they can do it, they can be major contributors to society.

You can read about AKF USA’s programs in Education here.