‘Now it’s me as their elder’: After a mother’s death, a struggle to finish school in Kenya

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• JOAB ONYANDO, KENYA:

  I think if I go to school, and God helps me, I'll become a pilot or a mechanical engineer.

  I want to be just a pilot.

  It's not a pilot. It's an engineer.

  When the government introduced free primary school, it was like every child wanted to join school.

• NARRATOR:

  Joab Onyando's family could never afford tuition for school, until 2003, when Kenya makes primary school free for the first time in nearly thirty years.

• UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:

  Good morning, school.

• STUDENTS:

  Good morning!

• NARRATOR:

  More than a million new students flood the system. Joab is 10 and his brother Gerald is 7 when they begin first grade, walking to school each day through the sprawling Nairobi slum they call home, Kibera.

  (SINGING)

• NARRATOR:

  Their class has 74 students, and one teacher.

  Free education isn't entirely free. Like so many others from Kibera, Joab's family struggles to pay for school uniforms, books, even pencils. His father, Alfred, is chronically unemployed, while his mother Leah takes care of the children.

  Just having enough to eat is always a problem.

• LEAH ONYANDO, JOAB’S MOTHER:

  The way I see it, if he goes to school, his life will improve tremendously, and he'll be able to get me out of this misery, so I always encourage him to read and learn.

• NARRATOR:

  But shortly after Joab begins school, he's hit with a terrible blow.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  The last time I saw her, that day in the morning, she was fine.

• NARRATOR:

  His mother dies, at the age of 28.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  She told me that I should take care of my brother and my younger sister. I stake care of Gerald and Filgona.

• NARRATOR:

  Unconfirmed rumors that his mother died of AIDS are enough for Joab and his siblings to be ostracized by their neighbors.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  When my mother died, nobody didn't want us. Even as friends. Not even when we were playing with their children. They were chasing us away.

• NARRATOR:

  Joab runs away from home. Joab becomes one of Nairobi's 60,000 street children.

• LEAH ASEGO, JOAB’S TEACHER:

  I think the playmates were trying to lure him to go to the streets.

• NARRATOR:

  Teacher Leah Asego sends some of Joab's classmates to find him.

• ASEGO:

  He told me, "Teacher, I didn't want to know where I was heading to." So that is a boy we rescued again to come back to school.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  She told me not to care about what people are saying.

• NARRATOR:

  Now in fourth grade at age 12, Joab is doing well with his studies and is named class monitor.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  Jones, sit down. Hey you, Ondinyo, sit down.

• NARRATOR:

  By the time Joab is 15, his father remarries and moves out. Joab honors his mother's wish that he look after his brother and sister.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  Now, it's me as their elder, and then Gerald and Filgona.

• NARRATOR:

  Joab is now head of the household, and must find a way to feed the family. A school program provides fresh vegetables and other staples meant only for the children. But the free food attracts a visitor: their father.

• JOAB’S FATHER:

  They go some vegetables. So I can take a piece or two pieces for my consumption on the other side.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  If there's no food, we will just sleep. Sometimes I feel angry at my father. Sometimes you feel as if why your — my mother was the one to die?

  (SINGING)

• NARRATOR:

  Despite the hardship, Joab stays in school. Mrs. Asego keeps close track of him, involving him in poetry performance competitions to keep him motivated.

  Joab graduates eighth grade in the top third of his class. He gets a scholarship to a strict boarding school called Nakeel. Because he started school so late, he's an independent-minded 18-year old, entering ninth grade. And that's not an easy transition.

• PAULINE NABWANA, JOAB’S TEACHER:

  Here in school, there are rules and regulations. There are duties allocated to each student. Sometimes Joab might not have done the duty and you find that he has to be given another day of punishments.

• NARRATOR:

  Joab begins finding excuses to go home to Kibera. Until one day, he just doesn't come back.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  I'm not going to Nakeel. People didn't understand me. People didn't understand my life. Didn't know where I was coming from.

• NABWANA:

  I wish Joab would have really known he had a chance to excel. At least to bring himself out of that quagmire.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  After I dropped out, I was just in Kibera. I was doing nothing.

• NARRATOR:

  His grandmother finds him living on the streets again.

  She takes him to her village in western Kenya. Joab survives as a subsistence farmer, out of school, for the next two years.

  His education has reached a dead end.

  But his brother Gerald, who started primary school the same day as Joab, not only stays in school but excels. The little boy Joab took care of after their father left them is now 19-years-old and class president.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  I was very happy for him. I know my brother is a leader.

• NARRATOR:

  Gerald's future depends on national exams. If he does well, he could go to college. A future that now seems out of reach for Joab.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  I don't like being here. The way I've been in the streets of Nairobi, and the way I see life now, I would follow any rule, just for me to be in school. I'll do anything, just for me to stay there.

• NARRATOR:

  Joab asks our film crew for a ride to Nairobi, where he hopes to find a job or some training. Kibera has changed little since he left two years ago. If anything, it's more crowded and desperate. Without intervention, it seems unlikely Joab, now 21 years old, will find his way back to school.

• UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:

  Time management, will it be a challenge for you?

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  No, I won't have any problem with time management.

• NARRATOR:

  But Joab gets another chance. With the help of his former teacher at Nakeel boarding school and American sponsors, Joab is accepted to a day school outside Nairobi, far away from Kibera.

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  I'd like to be a civil engineer. Like build a bridge, that this bridge was constructed under the engineer, Joab.

  This is the last chance.

• UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:

  Make use of it properly. Don't mess. Yeah?

• JOAB ONYANDO:

  Yes.