It is time to show kindness to all poor Kenyans

Susan Mukasia serves her customers tea at her Shianda market kiosk in Kakamega County on November 4, 2018. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Experts are already asking us to stop thinking of a world without coronavirus, but to begin to figure out how to coexist with this situation.
  • It is time to ramp up the charitable efforts already set in motion by government by reaching out to those who work for us in our homes and share the little we have.

The most heartbreaking story of the week was one about Peninah Kitsao, a widow from Kisauni, in Mombasa County, who resorted to boiling stones to give her children the illusion that food was on the way.

It is every mother’s worst nightmare to watch their children cry of hunger and have nothing to offer them.

The mother of eight was widowed last year when her husband was murdered by a criminal gang. She was two months pregnant with her last-born child, who is now six months old.

Since her husband died in June 2019, Peninah has been fending for her family through casual jobs, such as washing clothes, but things have been tough the past couple of weeks, given the Covid-19 situation.

Experts have said that coronavirus is the great equaliser, attacking billionaires and paupers in equal measure. It is a novel disease that transcends race, tribe and nationality, seizing both young and old, men and women without discrimination.

Covid-19 spares none; it is a respecter of nobody, sending even prime ministers of some of the world’s most powerful economies, like Britain's Boris Johnson, to the ICU and back.

GLARING INEQUALITY

But really what Covid-19 is doing is exposing the inequalities in our society. While all ‘animals’ are equal in this coronavirus regime, some are ‘more equal’ than others.

This means that while some of us can work from home and still get paid at the end of the month, the situation is not the same for majority of our society.

It is easy while seated on your nice, warm couch to complain about ‘cabin fever’ and how we are tired of sitting and working from home, but we need to think about those in the informal sector — like Peninah Kitsao — for whom ‘working from home’ is a matter of life and death.

It is important to note that while a good number of our children are taking their classes by putting the e-learning concept to test, there is a bigger majority of our society whose children are missing out on learning not only because they lack access to computers, internet and tech-savvy teachers but also a meal.

And that, dear readers, is the reality for majority of Kenyans. Working from home and learning from home is not the reality in Kenya; it is the exception, a privilege enjoyed by a very small percentage of Kenyans.

Majority of Kenyans are wondering, nay, praying when we will get back to ‘normalcy’, if ever there will be such a time.

LOW-WAGE EARNERS

Experts are already asking us to stop thinking of a world without coronavirus, but to begin to figure out how to coexist with this situation.

But this column is not about the policy gaps in e-learning or the percentage of Kenya’s workforce in the informal sector. This is a rather unusual piece with a rather unusual call to action.

Before we can discuss why not all children can keep up with their learning in this coronavirus regime, let us first challenge ourselves to take care of those for whom working from home is a death sentence.

I know corporate organisations across the world are downsizing, slashing salaries and laying off staff. Everyone, from CEOs to support staff, is feeling the pinch of the pandemic.

Yet there couldn’t be a better time to show humanity and kindness - especially to those who cannot afford basic stuff like food.

I am talking about the mama safi, like Peninah Kitsao, who dutifully relieve us the burden of coming home to a pile of dirty laundry after a long day in the office.

I am taking about the men and women in the informal industries, like construction, those who work in factories, and the mama mbogas who feed us every other day without fail.

RETURN FAVOUR

I am talking about the shoe shiner whose stand you stop by to polish your boots on a rainy morning, the waiters and waitresses who serve you seamlessly at your favourite cafe and those at your favourite kibanda.

These people have been taking care of us for years; it now time for us to take care of them.

It is time to ramp up the charitable efforts already set in motion by government by reaching out — at a personal level — to those who work for us in our homes and share the little we have.

If coronavirus teaches us anything, let it be that we are indeed our brothers’ keepers.

The writer is the director of the Innovation Centre at Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications. The views expressed in this column are her own; [email protected]