Aswani's journey
Aswani’s Story
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Founder of Aswani Project of Hope Children's Foundation
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Born in a rural village in Western Kenya, Aswani was the eldest of 7 children, four brothers and three sisters. Being from the Luyha tribe, their family had ancestral land in a village called Kakamega. The family spent most days working in their small farm filled with maize, sorghum, millet, arrowroot, yams, bananas and local leafy greens to try to feed themselves as Aswanis parents never had an education or jobs themselves. Most people in their region could never afford an education or find employment and so must rely solely off the land to survive. Plowing, cutting, digging, harvesting in the hot sun day in and day out. His mother would on occasion labor on other peoples farms weeding or doing odd chores in efforts to make any cash to feed the family, however they were all far too familiar with being left hungry. In rainy season the children would stay up all night holding up metal sheets to funnel the water pouring through the grass hatched roof into rain buckets they would use as their main source of drinking water. Having only the one pair of clothes on their bodies the seven would huddle together, bums sinking into the saturated mud waiting for the sun to dry their dripping tshirts and dreaming of a warm meal that was not guaranteed when the light of morning came. When Aswani was still a young boy, his father remarried and left his mother and all the children with no further support. Being the eldest son, Aswani from then on held the weight of the responsibilities for the family.
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Living hands to mouth, there was no means for any of the children to attend school due to school fees. At the age of 10, Aswani found his father who was still living in the village with his new family, and begged him to take him to school. Finally one day, Aswanis father obliged. The two walked 20 kilometers from their village to primary school, no shoes, no books, no pencils and only $4 in their pocket. Aswani was excited and hopeful to learn.
Aswani walked into the school directors office, his dirty, bare feet from the 3 hour walk leaving traces as he stepped forward. The director looked the boy up and down his eyes stopping at every rip and tear of his tattered clothes. Aswani hoped his smile could make up for the $86 fees they were missing to go to class. With great luck the director saw something in Aswani and instructed the book keeper to wave his fees totally for the time being. And so Aswanis road to education had just began.
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Every day Aswani would leave his home at 5am to make the 3 hour journey to his 6th grade classroom all by himself. With no books or pencils, he would sit and listen attentively and borrow classmates notes or readings in between lessons trying to absorb and memories all he could. Against all odds, Aswani scored the highest marks of any of the students in all of his courses without fail. As the top performing student in the school, the director continued instructing the bookkeeper to wave his fees. Aswani would do some gardening and cleaning on campus in exchange for his spot as a student at a desk. On nights that the rain was too strong or it got too dark, Aswani would spend the nights sleeping on the classroom floor when the 20 kilometer walk back to the grass hut home was not possible. One of Aswanis teacher's later offered him work on her farm. He planted pineapples and bananas and with the small money he made, Aswani started roasting and selling peanuts as well as sugarcane on the road side. With this little business, he still did not buy his school materials or uniform but would try to feed his mother, sisters, and brothers.
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When secondary school enrollment time came around, Aswani found himself yet again outside the headteachers office, still shoeless, without uniform, no books and not a dollar in his pocket to put toward highschool tuition. He sat for 8 hours waiting outside on a bench before the headteacher finally recognized his outstanding academic records and saw the determination in Aswani that he was going to find a way to education. And yet again, with nothing to offer but his raw intellect and hard work, Aswani was enrolled into secondary school.
Aswani earned right as a young academic on campus firstly by scoring the highest on all his tests as well as his jobs on campus. He worked on small construction projects, clearing sewage lines, cleaning bathrooms, being a security guard, and gardening. After his first year on campus, and after all Aswanis hard work, the head teacher finally offered Aswani his first pair of shoes and a uniform. At the age of 15 Aswani learned to lace up his first pair of shoes and button up his crisp collared shirt. The second year, the head teacher offered Aswani money of which Aswani refused. What Aswani did request though was a used bike to cut down his 3 hour walk to and from class to a 1 hour bike ride.
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Aswani went to graduate highschool as the top student of the school and his exam scores landed his an offer of acceptance to university. Aswani of course could not pay for university and so he did the only thing he could think to help provide for his brother and sisters and mother and that was going to Nairobi the capital city to search for work. At the age of 18 Aswani started in construction work. He would lift buckets of concrete up 6 flights of stairs for 10 hours a day to make a mere $2. Aswani did this day in and day out only using the fraction he needed for food and rent and sending the rest home. His only focus, what got him through each day of this painful labor, was his desire to provide all of his siblings the opportunity of education as well. Eventually one of the construction site managers recognized Aswanis efforts and also his age. The man knew Aswani was far too young to be doing this type of work and offered him a job working in the electrical shop attached to the construction site where he worked more comfortable for the remainder of the project. Once the project came to a close Aswani was back to ground zero and had to seek out new work.
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He found an opportunity for security guard training course of which he took with the upmost professionalism. He was assigned 12 hour night shifts. He was dedicated to having perfect etiquette for all of his bosses. He took it upon himself to memorize all their schedules, learn all their requests, to go above and beyond for the estate owners providing everything before they needed to even ask. His work ethic was recognized and stood out and this scored him the privilege of being sought out to work for one specific home owner. A Dutch United Nations official specifically requested Aswani as his full time security guard and put him on day shifts, a promotion Aswani never could have dreamed of.
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The Dutch diplomat and Aswani started to build a very close relationship. The favors went both ways really. The man asked if Aswani would like to start teaching his house cook English. This old woman apparently cooked the best Dutch food in Kenya, and had been cooking all of of his meals for years however they could never communicate. Within just a few weeks, the kitchen was not so quiet any more.
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The Dutch man questioned Aswani why a bright young man like him never went to university. Aswani explained that he was indeed accepted to one of the most elite universities in Kenya but he couldn’t pay the fees and went straight into work after high school to help support his family back home and send his younger sisters through school. The Dutch man then vouched to pay for Aswanis entire university degree.
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Some years later, Aswani earned a Masters in Social Work. After receiving his degree, the Dutch man secured him a job in the human resources department of the UN in Nairobi. Shortly after starting in this work, Aswani married his lovely wife and they had their first baby boy named Prince.
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Prince was born with cerebral palsy. Because of his condition, Aswani felt he needed to quit his job to be with his son and his wife as Prince’s condition was quite severe. Life was not easy as they faced cultural rejection and stigma that is associated with children who have special needs. The taboos and traditional beliefs, discriminate and ostracize these children for deep rooted beliefs of bad omens, black magic, accusation of committed sins to ancestors.
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Seeing Aswani in this hard stage of life one of his friends lent him his motor bike so that Aswani could make some cash as a motorbike driver. With any spare pocket change Aswani made, he would buy food to feed street kids. Aswani himself and his family had struggled through so much poverty and hardships through their lifetime, he had felt rejection, been an outcast; and Aswani felt compelled to alleviate that suffering to any extent he could for others. Aswani will tell you his son Prince was his biggest inspiration in giving this outward care and compassion to others which ignited the start of the Aswani Kizito Project of Hope Children’s Center.
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Aswani Kizito, a boda boda rider (meaning a motorcycle delivery and transporter) and his wife Linette, started a home for orphaned children soon after their son Prince was born with cerebral palsy in 2005 . Linette had to stay at home to look after Prince. Being church leaders, they were soon inundated with requests to take in disenfranchised orphaned children found by their church in the slums of Kawangware. Soon children of all ages found their way to the church and from there into Aswani and Linette’s home.
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One such example was that of young George Kasiti who was five years old at the time, who Aswani found rummaging for food in a garbage heap in the slum. When Aswani asked George what he was doing, he said his mother was ill in bed and he had to feed her and his little sister, Mary Wanjiku. He led Aswani to the room in the slum where his mother lay in bed dying of HIV and a small child who hid from him. Aswani stepped in to help the family and soon after, the mother died and the two young orphans were brought into his home.
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Before long, the number of orphan children had risen to 46 being housed now in three squalid rooms as Aswani’s home had become too small. Volunteers from the church provided basic teaching and a room was found nearby as a makeshift classroom converted on Sunday to a church. Soon, the programme expanded and children from single parent homes, those rejected by their families for various reasons, those with other special needs and poor children were being taught in the class and fed by Aswani through his boda boda business. The non-orphan children went home to their parents or volunteers each day – otherwise known at the Guardians.
The children live in difficult circumstances and environment, yet with so little, a few of the older ones have done really well academically, such as Blessed Vuyanzi, 14, who in the recent KPE national exams scored a commendable 80% and got a place at a national school (Mkumu Girls Secondary), where tuition is free but books, blankets and food are not. These children are deserving of a better chance in life from the one they were born into.
In 2011 Aswani registered his programme as a Community Based Organization and the operation runs smoothly with orphans looked after in slightly larger and better facilities paid for by well-wishers and his boda boda business. The income raised from these sources pays for the day to day operations of the shelter, electricity and rent, at least a meal a day and some education for the children. Exceptional costs such as those incurred for those who have done well and progressed to boarding schools are also supported by a combination of boda boda income and well- wishers.
At the end of 2016 ,a group of these well-wishers led by the Tejpar Family visited the home and stepped in to do something about providing the children a better home and life out of Kawangare. The plan is to establish a Children’s Centre under an NGO which will acquire land in a new location outside of the slum and establish a better living and enabling environment for the children. Unfortunately COVID has delayed these plans and currently Project of Hope houses 90 children including 8 children with cerebral palsy. The Center also feeds and educates an additional 200 orphans and street children.
Aswani gives all these children a place to feel and be loved as a family.