REPUBLIC OF KENYA

THE PRESIDENCY
MINISTRY OF DEVOLUTION AND PLANNING

SPEECH BY ANNE WAIGURU, OGW CABINET SECRETARY,

MINISTRY OF DEVOLUTION AND PLANNING, DURING THE
PRIZE GIVING AND SPEECH DAY AT PRECIOUS BLOOD
SECONDARY SCHOOL ON THE 17TH OF JULY 2015

The Principal,
Fellow Alumni Present,
Students,
Ladies And Gentlemen,
It is a tremendous honour to address you today as the Guest of Honour
of the 2015 Speech and Prize Giving Day. A prize-giving day is an
important event on any annual school calendar. Its an opportunity to
look back and take stock of our accomplishments over the last one year.
For me personally, it is a day of great nostalgia, because in a sense I am
coming back home. Precious Blood was home to me for four years and I
have fond memories of my stay here. This school introduced me to
culinary delights unmatched anywhere in the world such as the famous
Precious Blood githeri topped with a spoon of blue band margarine
accompanied with a slice of avocado. For the uninitiated, that was a
meal to die for. And by the way, in my time, adding blue band
margarine to food was illegal but chilli was allowed. Really? Does that

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rule still exist? Anyway, as a result of this rule, mixing blue band on
everything quickly became something of a PB trademark.

My first year was a difficult one though. I was thoroughly homesick and
spent a great deal of time asking Sister Gema to call home to convince
my dad to move me to another school. As the young people like to say,
my dad felt nothing and so I stayed put and quietly adjusted to the
rhythm of life in PB.
A typical day in PB started at the crack of dawn. We were required to
jump out of bed every day precisely at 5.30 am. Not at 5.15 am or 5.20
am. Precisely at 5.30 am. The privilege of waking up at 5.15 am was
reserved for seniors and prefects. And one had to literally jump out of
bed failure of which would lead to grounding. I still occasionally have
nightmares of jumping out of bed at 5.30 am.
Thereafter we queued for cold water with buckets. And July was
especially bitterly cold. And when the bell rang, one had to jog on the
spot to show that you had an instantaneous response to the bell. Yes,
jogging on the spot. Is that practice still there? Maybe someone should
ring the bell for us to find out.
One of my favourite memories is singing hymns every morning, and
blessed is the man particularly comes to mind.
Looking back, I recognise that who I am today, all my values and
everything I believe in were moulded here in this school. Today, I
appreciate the discipline, hard work and integrity that were inculcated in
us at an early age by Precious Blood School.
At PB, it did not matter where you came from, whether your father was
peasant father or a minister, all of us were made to feel equal. We all
wore the same uniform and for those with long hair, it was tied in a pull
back or pony tail as we call it today. Every student came to school with
exactly the same provisions 2 packets of Marie biscuits, 500g of Blue
Band margarine and a bottle of Treetops Juice (which by the way is

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back in supply). This rule emphasized uniformity and made all of us

equal.

My favourite teacher was Mrs Mungai who made me love mathematics.

She just had a way with numbers; one could even say she had great
chemistry with numbers, making math seem so easy especially for us as
female students. I got my love of Maths from her. She used to tell us
you are joking, you are really, really, really joking. How can you get
60% in my class? As a result we all had As in Maths. Mrs Mungai went
on to teach Maths to my sons in St Marys School. Bless her heart.
At one time the former President Mois motorcade was heard passing
outside the school and some of us ran out to greet him. The girls I was
with dared me to stop the motorcade which I did and to our delight,
the convoy stopped for the then President to address us. In the process,
we were given a huge amount of cash (Kshs 20,000 to be exact) for us
to buy some good food. We also received a box of orbit chewing gum
and though it was against school rules to chew gum, we happily did so
as it was from the President.
Our teachers also taught us that inner values were more important than
superficial outward appearance. Discipline and etiquette were taken
seriously. I remember once, a disappointed Mr Akatsa, one of our
teachers then, ticked us off for what he considered bad behaviour.
saying in his 7 years at the school, he had never seen students riot. He
termed the behaviour a disgrace to our school. Mr Akatsa grounded us
in a rather interesting way - the punishment was for us to be silent and
not talk for a month. Imagine that: teenagers not being able to talk for
a month. We shortly became a school of mimes.
Speaking of which, I recall a young lady by the name Ms Jacinta
Mategwa who was on teaching practice at the time. Today she is here
with us and goes by the name Mrs. Akatsa and is now the principal of
this great school. Apparently good things come from PB.

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A lot has changed since then. At the time I was a student here we had
no internet, emails or cell phones. It was an age before instagram,
facebook and twitter (which my people from Central call twirrer). It was
a time we communicated through public phones called call boxes and
sent handwritten letters to our loved ones who would wait for an
anxious week or two before receiving the same.
As you can see, language has changed; from Sasa to WSUP. The means
of communication has changed; from KBC to youtube. The tools of
communication have changed; from hand written letters to smart
phones. In other words the only constant thing in life is change. Change
is ever present.
Girls, I assure you, change will happen in your lives, you will grow older
with every passing year; your social status will change from high school
girl, to college student and eventually to worker/entrepreneur/employer
or cabinet secretary or perhaps even President. The society will demand
of you different things at different stages of your life; you will change
from daughter only to daughter and mother and later to grandma. Its
the inevitable cycle of life.
As teenagers, Im sure you are indeed familiar with the process of
change. You have undergone tremendous change, through physical
maturity, emotional changes, changes in knowledge and even social
changes. How well you navigate this process of change, and embrace
the difference it brings determines how well you adjust and become part
of a community. The change process, is however not always easy, it
unsettles us, breaking our knowns and thrusting us into unknown
territory.
However despite its certainty, change is one of the most mismanaged
affairs of our daily living. We rarely prepare for change, so when it
happens, we feel vulnerable, and even sometimes fearful. Some resist it
and cling to the familiar, while other plunge almost thoughtlessly and
stumble along the way.
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How well you manage this change process, will however depend on
many things. Little consistent investments will need to be made, in times
of stability, to be drawn upon in times of change. So what you deposit
inside of you, through thought, written and spoken word, or sight; and
who or what you surround yourself with is important.
In this regard, I want to leave you with three points.
Firstly, stay true to yourself. In the words of Judy Garland, "Always
be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of
someone else." Your peers and others will put pressure on you to
conform to their way of thinking and their way of life. I want to make it
clear that there is no satisfaction in living a life to please others or
keeping up with the Jones. Step aside from the clutter of everyday life
and try and figure out what kind of person youd want to be, what kind
of values youd want to pass on to your children one day and how you
would want to be remembered by the world.
As a woman seeking to break into many male dominated professions
you will not find many blueprints out there, you may need to be the
trailblazer. Your values will be your anchor in those long lonely nights
when you are faced with discouragements and the future looks a bit
uncertain. It helps to have some kind of vision for your life then work
towards creating a plan to get there. It will be a little messy, but
embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the
complications. It will not be anything you anticipated, but therein lies
opportunities.
When I was your age I thought success was something different. I
thought success was to be live in a big fancy house, drive nice cars, to
have a cushy corporate job. My idea of success is different today.
Success, I think, is to live your life with integrity and to not give in to
peer pressure to try to be something or someone that you are not.

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Secondly, follow your dream. I know this phrase is now clich and
Lupitas expression that your dreams are valid has been thrown around
so much that it has lost some of its power. However, theres tremendous
power in our dreams. Every great achievement starts as a dream. Every
great building, every great company, every great invention was once the
figment of a persons imagination.
So do not be afraid of the power of your dreams. Figure out what your
passion is and work towards making a career out of it. Like Steve Jobs
said, Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way
to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only
way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet,
keep looking. Don't settle.
This process of self-discovery may take time but it is absolutely
important. It took me a long time for example before I figured out that I
wanted to be a CS. Im joking of course. Seriously though, as a young
girl in Precious Blood I wasnt sure about my future career. But over
time, through my studies and my interactions with various people, I
discovered that I cared deeply about public service; that I cared deeply
about serving my country. So my advice to you is read widely and
deeply; get involved in extracurricular activities and consult those who
have gone before you. After some time a picture will emerge about your
passion and the most productive way to pursue it, and thus you can
manage the transition and change process into your career.
My third and final point is: have faith in God. Lets have faith in God
that when we follow our dreams and remain true to ourselves, the
landing will be a soft one. That everything will be okay. Because most of
the time it is, and even sometimes when things go wrong, you often
look back later on and can see some good things which might have
come out of it. Only when youve really committed yourself to something

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do you really start to see new opportunities. Trust in God in every

change process and He will see you through.
As I conclude, let me say something.
A couple of years ago an ordinary girl from an ordinary family took up a
difficult assignment, an assignment that did not come with much in the
way of an instruction manual. The lady was not sure what lay ahead of
her but she had faith that she had developed certain habits that would
serve her well in her new assignment and she had faith in God and in
the vision that her boss had set out for her. Today that lady stands in
front of you deeply honored to have been a central part of the
devolution journey that is now part of our social and political
infrastructure and a champion of the youth transformation agenda.
That girl is testimony that you dont have to have a certain surname or
come from a certain background to achieve your dreams. I am living
proof that hard work and excellence pays off. If you work hard and
distinguish yourself in what you do and strive for excellence; one day,
people will notice, and pick you out from the crowd and raise you up.
I keep saying, as a woman, you need to work twice as hard to gain half
the recognition. Although it may not be easy to see, every
accomplishment you achieve is a crucial stepping stone for the next
generation of women. When you succeed, you lighten the burden on
other women. Let this thought energize you to strive to be the best and
to stand out from the crowd in everything you do.
You too can be that girl. Stay true to yourself, follow your dreams and
have faith in God.

Thank you and God bless

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