Margaret (right) on the day of her first vows.

At Laini Saba primary School:  Eunice Atieno, postulant; Jennifer Simwa rscj, Sabina Namutali rscj, Margaret Mwarili rscj

Margaret with Analía Vergara rscj at the entrance to the school

The reality of Kibera.

School children

Lunch time

I was born and raised up in Shillakaya village, Kakamega district of Western Province of Kenya. My early education took place in schools run by the Sisters of Mary in Kakamega district. Before entering the Society I completed a course in Agriculture in a Franciscan college in the Rift Valley province of Kenya. As a young professed I did my first degree in Education and Religious Studies in Marist International College affiliated to the Urbaniana Pontifical University in Rome and later on a Master’s Degree in School Administration and Supervision in the College of New Rochelle in New York, USA.

I joined the Society in 1992 and made my first vows in 1994. I was attracted by the care and love of the sisters I met. I was touched by the way they lived their internationality and above all, by the name of the congregation, the Sacred Heart. This spoke to me of the commitment of the members to the values of the Heart of Jesus.

Since I entered the congregation, I have lived in several communities and worked in different ministries: in Eldoret as a teacher in Eldoret Harambee (self-help) Secondary School, and in Chekalini in Bishop Ngenga Girls' Secondary School where I taught Religious studies, Kiswahili and History.

Since my final profession in 2003, I have been working in Christ the King Parish in Kibera slum, Nairobi, where I have been the Education Coordinator for the parish. This year, I have begun to work in Laini Saba Primary School of the parish as a Head Teacher. This school started as a drop in center for street children and now many disadvantaged children of Kibera come to seek for quality education. It is a challenging but live giving ministry.

Working in Kibera slum for the last 3 years has been a very touching and enriching experience for me. This experience has brought me in touch with the reality of life in this, the largest slum south of the Sahara. Destitution, overcrowding and degradation of the environment seem to characterize the slum.

I am also in touch with some pertinent issues faced by slum dwellers: namely, violence, injustice and disintegration of family life. This is evident in the increase of orphans and street children, single mothers and in the prevalence of violence of different kinds. Kibera being a place where people would rather not live or work means that those who live here struggle every day to liberate themselves from this inhuman situation. Whenever there is an opening, some people move to other places where there is the possibility of access to water, better educational facilities and a clean environment. The challenge for me is how to help people in this situation experience the tender love of God.  Sharing in the life of the people here is one sure way of being in solidarity with those living in these conditions.

The situation of Kibera can best be understood through experience, through “come and see”. I have learnt to go out every day ready to handle life as it comes. My ministry often involves listening to people’s cries. I listen to the cries of the unemployed, the orphans who seek help to be able to go to school, to single parents, especially the mothers who struggle to bring up their children and to street children who seek for hope in their lives.

Often I encounter challenges in making the love of God known to hungry children, to children who have been thrown out of the house by guardians who are not able to take care of them, to single mothers who have been thrown out of their deceased husbands’ home due to cultural beliefs, to young people who are jobless and faced with the needs of their families. The cries that I often hear are: “My children are hungry.”, “Could you help my child get education?” Other voices pose questions such as, “Where do I go to find help for my grandchild?” It is hard to find answers to all these questions. However, the call to listen, to speak for the voiceless and those who are struggling, is persistent. Thus, working in Kibera slum has taught me to attend and listen to people who come to pour out their grievances. It is a call to listen to single mothers who are worried about the future of their children, a call to be patient with the anger of destitute people living in a slum.

Working in Kibera has been an opportunity for me to be evangelized.  Every day, as I walk into Kibera, the Bible becomes more a reality than a written word. For instance, the crowded corridor into Kibera every morning reminds me of Jesus’ teaching that the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. I experience the reality of this saying through my responsibilities as Parish Education Co-ordinator. My work calls for more listening, guiding, counseling, consoling, interviewing, visiting different education offices, writing reports and attending partners’ meetings, organizing or facilitating forums for discussion among teachers, pupils and parents of Kibera.

My experience of working in Kibera has therefore been like the experience of the poor widow in the Bible. Like this widow I feel called to be more generous, to empty myself and give everything – time, energy etc. for the sake of giving hope to those who have lost it. My experience has also been that of the Good Samaritan who, after seeing the need of the man who had fallen among the robbers, looked for ways of helping him to recover his health. He looked for help from the people in the inn, and when he was assured of good care for the injured man he left, but promised to come back and check on him. This connecting and bridging between those who have lost hope and those who can help to revive it has been an enriching and energizing experience for me. Thus, interacting with the people of Kibera has helped me to experience the love of God. I have experienced that poor people can be very generous and can support one another in many little ways. They help me to get in touch with the generosity of God.

The above experiences have formed me in different ways. They have helped me to appreciate what I have received from the Lord, the privileges I enjoy in my daily life, such as the availability of water, space, a clean environment and other things that are not easily accessible in the slum. Then, these experiences have enabled me to listen with patience to the cries of the many people who are suffering and to experience in a more concrete way the situation of the slum people. It is through these simple experiences of listening, bridging, reconciling and enabling that I express the charism of the Society.

Margaret Mwarili rscj
Province of Uganda-Kenya