Patricia Makele could hardly wait to go home for the April holidays.
The 16-year-old Form Two student at Precious Blood, Riruta, had missed her family, and also looked forward to some book-free days and catching up with favourite TV programmes.
But the April holidays did not quite turn out as she had expected.
GRUESOME
“Each time I switched on the TV, there was bad news after bad news,” she says.
In just one month, “there were several stories of young women who had been brutally murdered, many of the murders allegedly committed by their boyfriends or people they knew — a child also hanged himself.”
But the story that hit her most was that of the gruesome murder of 25-year-old Ivy Wangechi, the medical student who was hacked by a young man she had known since childhood, a man Ivy is said to have rejected.
“I found it so disturbing, especially because all those dead people had close ties with their alleged killers; why would you kill someone you love? You can talk and negotiate, you don’t have to kill them, do you?” argues the teen.
As she debated within herself, it occurred to her that perhaps all these bad things were happening because somewhere along the way, Kenyans had lost love for one another.
“Maybe these people felt that no one loved them, that no one cared for them. Perhaps if this changed, they would not resort to killing.”
Feeling she needed to do something, but unsure of what, she designed an artificial flower using recycled material collected at home and in the neighbourhood.
NEEDY STUDENTS
When she completed it, she wrote, “I love you” on the container, holding the artificial flowers. She placed it in the living room at a vantage point where her parents and siblings could see it every time they walked into the room. If she could not save Kenya, she could, at least, save her family, she thought to herself.
“I had been following the ongoing story of the lawyer accused of killing his son in March this year too (Assa Nyakundi) and shuddered at the thought of such a thing happening in my family.
“I hoped that each time they saw the message on the flower [container], they would be reminded that families needed to keep loving one another,” she says.
When she returned to school after the holidays, Patricia carried four such flowers to school, her intention to give them to four schoolmates, to remind them that she loved them.
“There are students in my school who don’t go home when we go for midterm because they don’t come from happy homes; they would rather stay in school because their parents fight.”
It is such students that she wanted to present her “happy” flowers too.
Two months later, her flowers of love have gone beyond her initial intention, and now raise money that goes toward paying fee balance for needy students at her school.
SH2,500
“When the school principal found out about her initiative, she roped in the parents, whom she encouraged to buy the flowers, and the proceeds would be used to educate poor students in the school,” says Patricia’s father, Patrick Makele
Not only that; some students are saving from their pocket money to buy the flowers in support of their fellow schoolmates.
One flower goes for Sh2,500.
Since she cannot carry out her project while in school, she enlisted the help of her father, who enthusiastically took up the project on her behalf, eventually employing two youth to ensure that the supply does not run out.
She plans to take her flower project to children’s homes.
“I want them to know that someone thinks about them. I’m convinced that most of the challenges we face as a country can be conquered by love, just a little love in our hearts,” she says.