Lorraine Anyango
23 July 2008
Nairobi — It's a warm, humid afternoon, and hundreds of students are gathered at Flamingo Secondary School Hall, chatting animatedly in small groups.
Mr Mark Sala with Menengai High School students during a training session recently. Photo/ JOSEPH KIHERI
They are discussing many things, among them the reasons why the teacher on duty asked them to assemble.
Suddenly silence descends in the a hall as a tall, casually dressed man walks to the podium.
Mark Sala has been invited to give a two-hour talk on crime and general indiscipline in schools.
He begins: "Indiscipline gets on one's way of getting a good school living certificate which is a requirement by employers."
With his lengthy address couched in witty proverbs and spiced with anecdotes and idioms, he drives home the dangers of drug abuse, and informs the students that alcohol is illegal for anyone under 18.
Nod in agreement
He tickles the students who burst into laughter, nodding in agreement.
Eight schools in Nakuru were gathered in a campaign dubbed "Tunakataa Fujo" meant to curb strikes.
For three months, the students have been receiving talks aimed at reforming their attitude. In embracing the motivational talks, students from several secondary schools have planned a peaceful walk to condemn unrest in schools.
The students from Nakuru Day, Khalsa, Afraha, Lake Lorenzo, Langanga, Menengai, Kenyatta and Flamingo secondary schools have been listening to Sala.
Armed with newspaper cuttings and songs, Sala has not been talking in vain. Unrest has not spread to the eight schools. "I start by informing students that any normal person from the age of eight qualifies to go to (juvenile) jail.
Sala is a researcher and UN-trained peace builder and counsellor who does community policing to proactively prevent crime.
He tells the students: "Compensation of damaged property becomes a constant burden to the parents."
He adds: "I tell students that travels abroad can be thwarted if one's history is linked to strikes."
Students from the eight schools now feel that strikes are a waste of time.
"After listening to Sala, I'm convinced that striking wastes our parents' resources that they dearly invested in us," says Samuel Karanja a Form Three student at Menengai High.
Peter Omondi Owidi from the same school says strikes have contributed to destruction and decline in performance. "Let us be civilised and adapt new forms of expressing ourselves," he says.
Adds Peter Njenga, a fellow student: "Student grievances should be solved using ethical and acceptable ways."
And Betty Jeptarus from Lake Lorenzo Academy says: "I have decided I will not participate in strikes just because my fellow school mates have decided to do so. I think it's important for me to be principled and to say No to anything that will affect my future."
Alex Rimui of Lake Lorenzo agrees: "Strikes are serious because they can cause even the death of student. Police may even shoot us if we decide to go the way of strikes, so I have decided I'm not participating in any strike. I will not waste my future on things that I can do away with."
Sala asks the students to name those they consider to be peaceful, and why they call the chosen one peaceful. Then he asks them to learn the behaviour they should strive to have while in school.
His talks came in handy after headteachers raised the red flag over the wave of violent strikes countrywide.
Last month, 300 secondary schools were hit by the unrest that saw students disrupt learning, besides destroying property, according to the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association.
"The trend is chilling as burning down school property is now the preferred choice in expressing grievances," said the association's chairman Cleophas Tirop.
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