CES alumni honour Mrs. Hellen Kulundu, CES Kenya Board member

As part of recognizing International Women’s Day on 8 March 2022, CEDS Alumni Chair Juma Edwin Nyongesa interviewed board member Mrs. Hellen Kulundu. Here is a lightly edited transcription of that interview:

Juma Asks: Mum (Mrs Hellen Kulundu), you have a very long history - briefly tell us about yourself.

I was born in Bungoma in western Kenya in the early 1950’s. My father was a teacher, who later became a pastor, one who trained others in pastoral ministries. His work took our family to Kaimosi, and it was there I began school in a grass thatched classroom. During grade 4 my father was transferred to Limuru. I had to move to Lugulu Girls Boarding School, where I completed the KCPE Kenya (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education). In 1967 I was happy to return home, joining Kaimosi Girls HS. I achieved as top student with a Division I grade A standing. My name is still hanging on the wall of honour.

I went to Alliance Girls (near Nairobi) for my A-levels and from there to Kenyatta University where I trained for a Bachelor of Education in Science, particularly Chemistry and Biology. I was hoping to become a doctor, but I ended up marrying one.

My first posting as a teacher was at Bunyore Girls’ SS, where I taught for ten years. My husband started practicing at Russia Hospital in Kisumu, (currently known as Jaramogi Oginga Odinga)  Hospital). Bunyore was close so we could meet. He was then seconded to Nyabondo Hospital before being moved to Kisii. I joined him in Kisii and taught in Kereri Girls SS for two years.

There was a hospital in Naivasha called Zulmack that needed a doctor. Our family went there and I ended up teaching at Naivasha Girls SS for another ten years. Then, he started having this idea of politics. He told me to go home and buy big sufurias (cooking pot containers), meet the women and start preparing the ground for him. When I returned home, I was committed to Namirama Girls SS where I taught from 1994 to early 1997.

I later on moved to Chebuyusi SS for a year and that is when my husband contested for Member of Parliament for Lurambi Constituency, and won in 1997. He said, “I want you to teach near here so that when people come and they don’t find me here, at least they should find you.” I was appointed to Navakholo SS as Principal and stayed there until my retirement in 2008.

I had heard of the work of CES Canada through Mr Malik Khaemba, the CES Kenya Patron. I had seen what they (CES) had done and so I got interested in it. When I retired he (Malik) came and asked me, “Now that you know about CES, if I put you on the Board of Management, will you assist us?” I joined the Board of CES Kenya in 2009, and since that time I have been with CES.

I was pulled by the idea of serving humanity because even when I was in school, when my father went to Limuru, there wasn’t enough money. We were many, and when I was in Kaimosi Girls I almost dropped out of school in Form Two. My parents never told me who it was, but someone picked me up from home, paid for my fees and continued through Form 2, 3 and 4. So, I feel indebted that I should do something for someone. I don’t want to brag, but I have paid fees for very many students, my late husband and I.  We have raised many people in this house, paid fees for them, some of them from both side of our relatives, some not even relatives because of what God did for me.

Juma asks: Tell us a little about your marriage and family life.

I met my husband when I was in the last year of my A-level education. He told me that he was from Bunyala, a place I used to mock because of the dialect spoken. After Form Six, somebody came to Kaimosi and said they needed an A-level girl to teach at a school in nearby Namirama. In those days one would have to wait for a long time before going to university, as much as two years because of strikes. The story is that my husband had asked his aunt who I was. In between his medical training years, he had also taught at my school in Kaimosi. His aunt told him,” There is somebody who has come to teach here”. He was interested in me because of our mutual interest in science; and then we became close. So in short, sciences brought us together.

I didn’t want to talk to any man who had not done sciences. I was very rude. And there we were, we met and we misbehaved a bit, because he was still in College. In 1975 we got married while I was in university.

There was a time my husband was posted to the coast, he went to Lamu and I reached there, He went to Msambweni, and I also reached there. All those places I have reached following him. Yeah, I have also travelled quite a bit. I have been to South Africa and I have been to the United States three times.

Juma asks: Today is International Women’s Day and from what you have shared with us, you have contributed so much to nurturing and bringing up your family. What has it been like?

Mmhh! Not easy. Raising children is not easy. You would wish them to turn out the way you were, but not all will be like that with the influences from the outside world. They connect more with the outside world than how we used to in our days. But, the good thing is that we were two, my husband and I. Their father was there and I cannot say I felt the weight too much like if I was alone. All went to primary boarding school; they all did well and all graduated. Two of them have done Masters and now have PhD degrees.

I would say God has been on our side. But it is challenging if you are a woman and you are not firm, because children in their formative years spend time with their mother. What you do and what you tell them, how to behave and taking them to church is the role of mother. Things like homework, we could manage in those days; but now it is challenging because of the new introduced CBC(Competency Based Curriculum) in which parents have not been trained.

The small things in the formative years, it is the mother. That’s why they say, “when you educate a woman you educate the whole society and the whole world at large.”

A woman I would say is a pillar in a home, because the father is gone most of the time. Even if you are working the way I used to, you come back early, you make meals, children eat and then do their homework. You can imagine if you do not know anything about what they are learning or won’t help because you don’t not have the patience to sit with them. Not all of them are willing to sit at the table and learn but you must be firm. In that way I would say our children have done well in school. One day our child found himself in trouble because he had not done well in a subject. He asked his father just before he was about to be caned, whether he had ever failed. “Bring me your report card and show me you never failed.” His father laughed and left the boy, he didn’t cane him.

Juma asks: They say, “once a teacher always a teacher.” You have been a teacher all your life and now retired. How was your teaching life, any lessons you can draw from it together with a motivation for the upcoming teachers?

Yeah! It depends also on why you chose on teaching or whether teaching chose you. Maybe you wanted to do something else but you didn’t manage and so now you are a teacher. We have teachers who are there because they could not do something else. It takes time for them to accept that. You will find they are in teaching but their mind is not in teaching. They are just there to earn a living. Such teachers to not produce much because as a teacher you need to be committed.

Then there are teachers who say,I wanted to be a doctor but God gave me this profession, let me make maximum use of this teaching so that I can satisfy myself. A teacher’s satisfaction is when the learners turn out the way they are supposed to be through your hands. When they get those grades, they may not do very well but you see, every child has a level of achievement. If you have pushed them to be somehow better than when they came in school, then you have added value.

So, commitment and patience is very important in teaching and  it’s hard work. These days you find children going to school even on Saturdays. Are you willing to be there with them? Or you will count this as the time you would have ploughed an acre. Be with them on Saturdays and make it useful to spend there.

Having been a principal, I have worked with some very young teachers who don’t understand. They are there because it is a job but not because it is a calling. Okay, it may have not been your calling, but do something so that the people who have hired you get what is expected. In this case, it is the student who has hired you and they should get the best you have to offer 

I am by the way on the Board of Management of three secondary schools here in Bunyala. In one school I am the chairperson, in another one the vice chairperson and then the other one the treasurer. The cry from teachers is that they need to be motivated. In my days there was no motivation except a salary and a chance to see your students learn and pass their exams.

Once you have trained as a teacher surely you are a grown up person. Just do things and remain like a grown up. You can’t go through training and remain a child. Then, there are those teachers who drink alcohol. These ones give us (principals) a hard time. And because the TSC (Teachers Service Commission) does not want them to be sacked or disciplined, they say, just counsel them. You find that principals are just swinging teachers around, for example, from Chebuyusi SS three months, Navakholo SS three months etc. A rolling stone gathers no moss. How will you get a promotion if you are rolling from one place to another every three months?

Juma asks: Having been a teacher, a principal, a wife to a doctor who would become the Member of Parliament and a Minister for Labour and Human Resource Development, how have you managed to remain so humble this long?

How do you measure humility? The secret is from my upbringing. My mother was a preacher, same as my father and they always told us, we read the bible and sing songs which said you must be humble. But, I have not struggled to become so, it has come naturally because of my parents. That is why when I am here, the kind of people you will find entering here will be like Leonora. She might not have as much as I have, but her ideas or the way we talk and that laughter is very important. It increases our days on earth they say.

Also, by the way I am a pastor. I trained after school at Chebuyusi. There is a bible school college which offers certificates. I am a pastor for the women at Quakers USFW (United Society of Friends Women). That is the background of my humility. If you embrace religion whether Christianity or Islam, there is no religion which says people should be arrogant or proud. You should humble yourself before God and before others to live a good life.

Juma asks: It was not by accident that you belong to CES, from your roots you were at the verge of dropping out of school and someone came for your rescue. What is you wish for CES in future?

For CES It is about my time and advice. It is not that we are using our own money. Some good friends in Canada raise funds and they send it to us to administer. But the time, the joy of going round the schools and talking to those students. When they see you and you have reached this level and still are interested in them, a few of them will get touched and say, “Look, this has been a teacher, she has left her work at home and even uses her own car to come and talk to us.” A few of them who were about to fail will say even me let me try because other people (CES) are interested in me and that’s where it comes from.

About my wish for CES it is a very difficult question. There are some wishes you just wish but you do not want to say because they are not manageable maybe. My wish is that CES should live on. The fire should keep on burning, otherwise if it just stops then what do we do? And it can keep on burning in several ways. It can burn through our donors continuing to support but it can also continue to burn through people who have gone through CES, the Alumni. Where are they, what are they doing and what do they intend to give back? And do they intend to pull some people from behind? When you were assisted and now you have your degree, are you just there and no longer want to pass by and greet people in the office? That is how the fire can keep on burning. We can continue getting the help but we must think about our own alumni. Haven’t we produced enough people who can say, “I will give like a hundred shillings monthly to a kitty which can pay secondary fees for a student.” Coming together of the alumni is very important. Sensitizing each other and asking the question, “what do I do?”

The way I asked myself, somebody paid my fees, I never was sent home again and you know the fee was just three hundred and fifty shillings in those days. That was a lot of money and very difficult to get because you could buy a cow with just fifty shillings. It was heavy money and our family was not well off, because pastoral work was not earning much. I now know it was a lady, I came to find out later, most of our teachers were Americans during that time. So one lady is the one who paid for my fees, God rest her soul in peace.

You see, I could just sit there and say this lady was an American and so had enough money. Or, I can sit back and say, “No! This lady denied herself maybe good food, good clothes and said let me pay for this African girl.” It was not necessarily that she had enough money. In fact, she was a widow who didn’t have much money but she paid for my fees. I can dismiss it and say it was a miracle. And then I go back and say, “What would life be like if I had dropped out of school in Form Two? Would I be where I am today? A principal somewhere?” When I think about these things I feel that everybody who has succeeded somehow has done so with the help of another.

Juma asks: As we conclude our conversation, what message do you have for other women out there on this International Women’s day?

Women are the backbone of society, pillars of the community.  They should be proud and embrace their work and not leave it to someone else. The work of a woman is to share the little that they have, guide the family and support their spouse. If for example I didn’t support my husband here, (I am not bragging) I don’t think he would have gone to the parliament. I was the one who was here, people would come, I cooked for them and did ground work for him, I networked alongside him. They (women) should support their partners when they want to do something. They should also unify the family. They should offer something to the society. If you are called to be in a meeting somewhere go, and offer your ideas. Single mothers are very important and have to play the role of the father and mother. They need networks of family and friends to encourage them.

Juma shares what CES Alumnus Allan Utumbi had to say about Mrs Hellen Kulundu.

Madam Hellen Kulundu played a very big role in my life. My academic excellence is entirely built on her. Her husband was my role model. My dad always tells me that when I was younger in standard four, I vowed to work hard, so that I could become a doctor like the late Dr Kulundu. This propelled me as my parents used to say, “you have to work hard to become a doctor.” In Form One, she held my hands and supported my fees. She is the one who handed me to CES in Form Three. She has a special place in my heart. Happy International Women’s Day to her!”