A family of one of the Garissa University terror attack survivors in Kisii County is a disappointed lot after their son failed to get a teaching job because of being maimed in the Al shabaab attack five years ago.
Speaking from their home in Nyakumbati village, Kiongongi location, the family appealed to the government to assist Ronald Magembe get a teaching job after graduating with a Bachelors degree in Education from Moi University in Eldoret.
Magembe who was transferred to the main campus after recuperating, said he was lucky to have survived the incident although two bullets, one that went through his right jaw and came out through the other side of his cheek shuttering his eardrum, and another that cut off the fingers on his left hand, changed his life.
The 25-year-old narrated how on 2nd, April 2015 at 5am he was doing his morning preps when he heard gunshots and together with other students dashed out of the class room.
He peeped through the window and that was when he was shot in the incident that left 147 people dead, majority of them students.
Magembe said the hearing challenge in one ear and the affected hand has made it impossible for him to get a job as a History and Kiswahili teacher.
“Interviewers query how I will handle learners using one ear only for hearing and extracurricular activities with no fingers,” regretted Magembe.
The December 2018 graduate has acquired his Teacher Service Commission number 827655 but still fears he might end up jobless after many learning institutions let him down.
“I have always wanted to be a teacher and am afraid my state cannot enable me to do farming even if I wanted to,” lamented Magembe.
His mother, Josphine Nyanchera recalls how they struggled to educate their second born child with meager resources from menial jobs and pleads with the government to give his son a job so that he can assist the rest of the family.
“My boy was healthy when I took him to the university where the calamity befell him out of no fault of his and now it is being used to deny him a future,” she sobbed.
His father, Cosmas Morang’a noted that whereas he was happy to have his son alive and educated, the impact of the terror attack left him devastated and hopeless.
He noted that his efforts to educate his son with meager earnings from casual carpentry jobs would be in vain if he does not get further assistance.
Magembe said he was willing to work in any part of the country except Garissa because any mention of the county ignites reminders of the horror happenings that left him in his current state.
By Clinton Nyamumbo/Mercy Nashipai
