BY LAWRENCE NZUVE

The recently enacted Universi-ties Act could see an unprec-edented number of students joining private universities in Kenya unable to pay for their fees.

This follows a government proposal to reduce subsidies in a new fees structure expected to see engineering and medical stu-dents pay higher fees than their arts counterparts in institutions of higher learning.

Under the arrangement, lec-turers teaching the same sub-jects will also be paid higher. A board is being set up to oversee the changes.

The Education Cabinet Sec-retary, Prof. Jacob Kaimenyi,

says, “Recruitment of the mem-bers of the board that shall set the particular amounts for unit-costing is under way. We expect that the board shall be functional in three months”.

The Universities Act will see the establishment of a univer-

sities fund to determine the amount that will be paid in each degree program. This is where the devil is in the details.

The Kenya Association of Private Universities (KAPU), however, feels that the said unit costing will distort enrolment in

both public and private univer-sities. “The differentiated unit cost should reflect actual aver-age costs of degree programmes and not just what is in the public sector since it is subsidized,” said KAPU chairperson, Prof. Freida Brown, the vice chancellor of United States International University (USIU).

The biggest losers in this arrangement will therefore be students in private universities. “In theory, degree programmes will be costing the same as right now to students in public uni-versities since it is subsidized already.

However, for students in private universities, they will still be forced to pay more since private universities must meet their own costs of running their institutions,” Prof. Brown told The Gazette in an interview.

The vice chancellor disclosedCONTINUED ON PAGE 4 >>

Scholars blame graft for Africa woesBY mIChAEL mANYIBE AND

WANYAmA WAfULA

A recent conference held at the United States International University (USIU) identified corruption as an major obstacle to development in Africa.

Speaking at the Model Afri-can Union forum organised by the Youth Alliance for Leader-

ship and Development in Africa (Yalda), USIU lecturer Ngure wa Mwachofi spoke on Africa ren-aissance and a need to curb cor-ruption to boost development.

“In my global travels, I found out that where there are miner-als, there is poverty for the locals. As a result, I coined the term the Rich Country Poor People (RCPP) Syndrome. I established

that this was the case because the political, economic and legal systems are set up by those in power, and the rest play by those rules,” said Dr. Mwachofi.

He referred to the recent Transparency International re-port on graft that ranked Rwanda as the least corrupt country in Africa and 13th least corrupt

Private universities set to lose out in new lawEngineering, medical students to pay more as State withdraws its tuition fee subsidies

The GazetteSUMMER 2013A PRINT MEDIA CLASS PUBLICATION MAY 7, 2013 -AUGUST 10, 2013

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 >>

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Corporate leaders on secrets of success

In the quest for entre-preneurial knowledge and skills, USIU students flocked the library book-shop to hear from the horse’s mouth.

Page 2

Varsity launches new IT, science courses

The United States Inter-national University is set to start offering courses in science, technology, engi-neering and mathematics commonly referred to as STEM, Vice Chancellor Freida Brown said during the 35th graduation held at the university grounds on August 17.

Page 4

Accountant with passion for radio

University FM presenter juggles between fulltime job and studio decks to entertain a loyal listener base.

Page 8

Dr Willie Butler speaks at the event.

USIU vice chancelloer Freida Brown with US ambassador to Kenya Robert F. Godec (back right) at the 35th graduation ceremony on August 17. NICk ThUITA

Sauti magazine

CAREER FAIR: Industry captains grace the annual event Pages 2, 3, 5

Flames make history in regional games Page 16

Gazette Summer 2013Page 2

BY WANYAmA WAfULA

“If you want to succeed as bad, as you want to breathe under water, then you‘ll succeed.” This is what Paddy Mwangi’s friend and mentor wanted him to learn when he intentionally sub-merged him in a pool of water.

Mr. Mwangi, now a men-tor, was narrating his inspiring story when he spoke during the Man-up talks organized by the Black History Month committee at the university’s auditorium on June 26.

The event sought to educate students, especially men, to play their rightful roles in the society.

Other speakers who graced

the event include film director and screenplay writer Jinna Mutune and cultural filmmaker Rodgers Cheruiyot.

This group of young entrepre-neurs co-founded the Bamong’o

Foundation, which aims to em-power men.

They mentor young people to achieve their dreams and aspirations.

“The objective (of Man-up talk series) was to eradicate gender-based violence and explore masculinity in African men,” said Stanley Kpenkaan, the chairperson of Black History Month this year.

As Mr. Mwangi and a col-league studied in Britain, they invented a chewable toothbrush after they saw a man counter-check his breathe before kissing a lady. They patented the idea and later sold it to Oral-B.

Today, out of their little in-

vention, more than 70 million toothbrushes have been sold around the world.

According to Mr. Mwangi, you can get a mentor, but first you must exhibit your desires. By engaging with what you love, you become successful.

“Mentorship is free but coaching is paid for. You pay with time and passion,” said Mr. Mwangi.

Mr. Cheruiyot, while re-sponding to questions about theatre, advised upcoming filmmakers to concentrate on positive African stories, and not just crime, poverty, disease, or war as the West has always stere-otyped Africa.

BY mIChAEL mANYIBE

In the quest of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, USIU stu-dents flocked the library book-shop to hear from the horse’s mouth.

Young entrepreneurs Laura Akunga, the CEO, Benchmark Solutions Ltd and Kamal Bud-habhatti, CEO Craft Silicon were chief guests on an event organized by AIESEC, an in-ternational students’ organiza-tion that operates in 13 countries around the globe. AISEC’s objec-tive is to activate entrepreneurial leadership for the youth.

Craft Silicon, which exports software to 40 countries around the world, has offices in the Kenya, US, Nigeria, India, and Tanzania. Benchmark Solutions Ltd is a leading marketing and branding company which saw Akunga win the prestigious young entrepreneur award in South Africa. The Government of Kenya has granted Benchmark Solutions Ltd 70 acres in Konza City.

Ms. Akunga who left her well-paying job at Safaricom to start a joint business with a

friend, advised students to be risk-takers if they wanted to succeed in the corporate world.

“I was only 19 while study-ing finance and marketing at USIU when I was employed by Safaricom at a starting salary of Sh98,000. After a few months, I became the employee of the year. Despite the success I still left my job. My mother was furious at me and called in people to convince me not to leave Safaricom, but I had made up my mind,” said Akunga.

She also added that for one to be an entrepreneur one should be able to point out an oppor-tunity and utilize it to one’s

advantage.“While working at Safaricom

I observed that the company was spending Sh50,000 per day on merchandise and product branding. This sparked a busi-ness idea in my mind. The mo-tivation to fill this gap inspired me to start a product branding company. Together with a like-minded friend we started S & L Company,” recalled Akunga.

In 2007 during the General Election campaign period, they raked in Sh88 million. After 2007, when S & L dissolved, Akunga founded her own com-pany, Benchmark Solutions Ltd. The firm deals in branding and

marketing and currently oper-ates in nine other countries around the world.

“Do something you love be-cause business is about chal-lenges, which always arise. Don’t start a business to make money. This mindset will earn you nothing. Continue working and money will follow,” advised Mr. Budhabhatti.

“Endeavour to avoid Plan Bs because they tend to reduce con-centration on plan A.” Regarding partnerships with other people or businesses, es-pecially during the formative years, he reiterated: “If at all, one should collaborate, he/she should be very careful on the choice of partner.”

“Customers are clueless. You cannot depend on customers’ feedback when launching a new product, because customers are always reluctant to accept a new product, especially when there is already a similar product in the market,” he said.

Mr. Budhabhatti, a college dropout, said it was advisable for CEO to hire people who are smarter than they are and build on what they are good at, and leave their weak areas to other people.

He added that picking fights with employees is good idea because they always decide to work harder, which in the end increases the company’s pro-ductivity.

“Keep your costs at the very low during the formative years,” Ms. Akunga responded when asked how she managed to pay her employees during the early stages of the business.

Business leaders share the secrets of successCorporate chiefs advise students on how to find bearing in life after school

USIU student Johnson Kayode asks a question during the Career Fair last Summer Semester where corporate chiefs advised students on career and business options. LAWRENCE NZUVE

Mentors urge young men to ‘man-up’

Mr Paddy Mwangi speaks at the ‘Man-Up’ talks in June. LAWRENCE NZUVE

NEWS | EVENTS | UPDATES

USIU among Africa’s top ten business schoolsThe African Business Review has ranked USIU’s Chandaria School of Business eighth among the top ten business schools in Africa. USIU is the second among the three East African business schools appear-ing on the list, the others being the University of Dar es Salaam Business School (fourth) and the University of Nairobi Business School (ninth). South Africa dominated the top 10 with the University of Cape Town ranked first, followed by University of Pretoria, WITS University (third), University of South Africa Gradu-ate School of Business Leadership (fifth) , University of Stellenbosch Business School(6), and the Manage-ment College of Southern Africa(7).

Red Cross Club, St John hold first aid training

The Red Cross club organized a two day training to enlighten students on ways to save lives in case of emergencies.A number of students attended the event which was presided over by members of the St. John Ambulance team who furnished them with first aid knowledge. At the end of the training, every participant was is-sued with mini first aid kits from the same organization since they were fully backed on saving lives. A few books on how save lives, published by the same organization, served as token of appreciation to interactive participants throughout the training.

USIU, Amref sign deal to train healthcare workers

The United States International University and the Africa Medical and Research Foundation (Amref) on August 1 signed an agreement to launch a Global Executive Master of Business Administration in Health Leadership at Management at the NGO’s International Training Cen-tre and Headquarters in Nairobi. According to a statement by uni-versity on its website, the Executive MBA targets health professionals in equipping them with skills to effectively manage health systems in a dynamic environment.

BRIEFS

Gazette Summer 2013

BY GERTRUDE BOsIRE

The thrill of being a senior is short-lived. Students are soon met with the realization that they have to get a job and for most of them, where to start is the biggest challenge.

The Placement and Career Services (PACS) office started running in May 2013. Initially, the Counseling Centre provided career services to students, but now, the outfit operates under the university’s Student Affairs Division.

Lillian Bogonko, the Head of Placement and Career Serv-ices made clear the difference between the Counseling Cen-tre and the PACS office which many students often mistake to be one entity. “While the career office under counseling center specifically dealt with CV and interview preparation skills, as well as career counseling in general, PACS has broadened its areas of focus.”

PACS is responsible for placement and recruitment of students where the office links students with employers. Men-torship is also an area where the office is interested in as it seeks

to connect students to individu-als that will guide them in their academic, personal and career decisions.

Students also get to learn in-terviewing and CV writing skills that equip them with knowledge on how to search for a job.

The office is there to also listen and guide students in identifying career options and also equip them with knowledge and skills to actualize their ideas.

Students are also encour-aged to attend the networking workshops as they are aimed at

helping them acquire and build social capital.

PACS makes use of these workshops to educate students on the value of social networks, especially when it comes to seeking employment,said Ms Bogonko.

Though it has been in exist-ence for less than a year, the PACS head says the office has achieved a lot within the shot span of time. “Many students have secured jobs through the office in companies like Radio Africa, Telkom Kenya, Eco bank,

Ericson, Bidco, KK security, UAP, Raiser and many more,” said Ms Bogonko.

Ms. Bogonko also noted that only few of the students who get employment through the office remember to give feedback.

Potential employers contact the school through the office for students to recruit. In such cases, the office ensures they get who they want either by first inter-viewing the eligible students or asking students to apply directly and be interviewed by the em-ployers.

“Other times,” said Ms. Bo-gonko, “We receive jobs through our staff and faculty members then advertise for students to apply directly.”

The key objective of the of-fice is to get students jobs, re-gardless of whether they have graduated or not. This is why the office holds an annual Career Fair, where employers come and recruit from a ready pool of tal-ent. “It is an event we hold dear and we hope to grow and make it bigger,” she said.

“Our alumni also participate either as employers or to simply encourage our students not to give up and to push and maxi-mize on their time in campus.”

There is also follow-up made to find out from companies that recruit USIU students about their progress is in terms of performance. By doing this,

the office seeks to identify gaps that need addressing, in order to better the relationship between USIU and the companies.

This way, links are strength-ened and students who partici-pate already have networks they can exploit.

Applying for a job and get-ting it is rewarding. The market is flooded with jobseekers who basically have similar qualifica-tions, hence stiff competition that renders many unemployed.

The other option is self-em-ployment. The problem is how to start without initial capital.

The PACS office can help stu-dents achieve this goal. Ms. Bo-gonko said that many students have good business ideas and all they need is guidance to grow their ventures.

The office is equipped with staff that understands the job market. “Because of this, it ena-bles us to encourage students to think beyond employment and seek to be employers.”

Working closely with the PACS office will broaden the career scope of students and also help them create links that will be beneficial to them even in future.

Visit the office at the Coun-seling Centre or contact them on careeroffice@usiu.ac.ke or on 020 3606515/162 to gain from the services.

Placement office aids alumni in job hunt Employers contact facility for graduates in search of the best talent to recruit

USIU Head of Placement and Career Services Lilian Bogonko. LAWRENCE NZUVE

NEWS | EVENTS | UPDATES

Page 3

BY mIChAEL mANYIBE

The United States International University (USIU) prides itself of having a model research cen-tre that aims at revolutionizing research in sustainable develop-ment in the region.

The Sustainable Develop-ment Initiative Centre (SUDIC), the environmental research ve-hicle at USIU was established in 2005 under the auspices of the Research and Academic Program Development Centre at USIU.

The centre was formed to en-able the university to actively participate and contribute to the achievement of partnerships with international, regional, national institutions as well as local government departments,

private entrepreneurs, NGOs, and other academic institutions.

The research centre aims at providing the much-needed impetus for research, knowledge and awareness of sustainable development in the develop-ing economies of East Africa.

Sustainable development re-fers to a mode of human devel-opment in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come.

“The idea was that if you want to define the research agenda for the university you don’t start from top down, but you start with the faculty and establish what their niches or interests are. Then, coalesce them around

a certain concept, in this case SUDIC, sustainable develop-ment,” said Prof Wambalaba, the deputy vice chancellor in charge of research at USIU.

SUDIC is currently undertak-ing a number of projects.

Some of these initiatives in-clude bio-fuel project, Kajiado Women’s Milk Project, Usalama Viwandani, paper recycling, and Agshare.

“The idea was to use waste oil which is normally thrown into the drainage causing all manner of problems, particularly when it solidifies it blocks drainage pipes,” said Prof. Max Muniafu, the director of SUDIC in refer-ence to the bio-fuel project.

Prof. Muniafu said that the waste oil is converted to bio-fuel is obtained from hotels.

Centre recycles waste oil

US Ambassador to Kenya Robert F. Godec with Ms Sonie Nyaga, a graduand during USIU’s 35th graduation ceremony on August 17. NICk ThUITA

Power to read

Gazette Summer 2013

USIU to launch science, IT coursesBY LAWRENCE NZUVE

The United States International University is set to start offering courses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics commonly referred to as STEM, Vice Chancellor Freida Brown said during the 35th graduation held at the university grounds on August 17.

To this end, the university has set aside Sh500 million to start a science laboratory for

the project. Across the globe, countries are looking at STEM programmes to transform their societies. Kenya is no exception,” said Prof Brown.

More than 1,200 graduands received Bachelor and Masters degrees in a colourful ceremony that was graced by United States of America Ambassador to Ken-ya H.E Robert F. Godec. Ambas-sador Godec thanked USIU for inviting him to be part of the commencement ceremony.

Said His Excellency Godec: “You are graduating from uni-versity at a particularly signifi-cant moment in history. While it is true that all moments in history are important, some mo-ments are more important than others. In Kenya, this is one of those more important moments. For Kenya is at a turning point. And at any turning point, there are both opportunities and risks. As young men and women, it will be your challenge to seize

these opportunities and face these risks as you seek to make Kenya – and the world – a better place for everyone”.

Degrees awarded included 930 Bachelors degrees (304 Bachelor of Arts and 626 Bach-elor of Science) and 333 Masters (43 Executive Master of Science in Organizational Development, 68 Global Executive Master of Business Administration, 173 Master of Business Adminis-tration and 43 Master of Arts).

Law to cost private varsitiesGraduands during the USIU 35th graduation ceremony at the university grounds. More than 1,200 graduands were awarded degrees during the event. NICk ThUITA

nation in the world after Sierra Leone, Liberia and Yemen.

The anti-corruption watch-dog observed that without involving citizens in the fight against the vice, bribery would not be eliminated.

He cited countries expe-riencing RCPP as Australia, South Africa, parts of the US and Kishushe in Taita Taveta County of Kenya. He said that despite these regions having minerals, poverty levels are high.

The communications expert challenged the youths to be good role models. “Change starts with self and then society; if you have good morals and ethics you can influence the rest to emulate you,” said Dr Mwachofi.

USIU deputy vice chancellor Institutional Affairs and Plan-ning Willie Butler outlined the history of the Pan-Africanism movement, starting from 1897 to date.

He said the movement’s main aim was to unite Africans, not only in the continent but also black people around the world.

The event attracted delegates from the rest of Africa. USIU stu-dents representing other nations debated on Africa’s problems and suggested solution.

On democracy in Africa, a delegate from Ghana said the practice should not be defined from the perspective of the West.

A representative of Mo-zambique argued: “Democ-racy started in Africa but not in Europe. Europeans adopted it from Egypt, therefore Africa needs to ignore the ingredients added by the west in the defini-tion of democracy.”

A Tunisian delegate spoke on the role of the Arab Spring, a revolution that swept across northern Africa and parts of the Middle East and resulted in freedom of press, expression and speech.

“Democracy can be defined as a situation where people are free politically, socially and eco-nomically,” explained an Ethio-pian delegate.

Rwandan representative said that democracy in a capitalist country does not exist since money rules over everything.

Academics blame graft for poverty in Africa

that the government plans to give grants to students whose degree courses are in line with its Vision 2030 blue print leav-ing the rest to scramble for the limited loans towards the pay-ment of their education.

This, she feels will be a big

challenge since the Higher Education Loans Board scheme offers students a maximum of Sh60,000 in loans and of this amount the highest USIU stu-dents get is Sh40,000.

Prof. Brown, however, is quick to add that the govern-

ment is free to fund those courses it feels are helpful to fulfill its mandate.

“The way out is for private sector to negotiate for a higher allocation rate for the degrees so that when students join pri-vate universities, they are not required to dig deeper in their pockets to pay more which will then disadvantage them against their public universities coun-terparts,” she says Prof. Brown.

All is not gloom though since the universities fund will determine a voucher system that would give students a wider choice of degree programmes.

Former Higher Education PS Crispus Kiamba had said earlier that this system would allow a student to pursue a course in a university of his or her choice

unlike now when Joint Admis-sions Board makes the choices for those who qualify for higher education after secondary school education based on performance rather than preference.

On the ability of the gov-ernment to fund its institu-tions, Prof. Brown said that the funding was not commensurate with the average student popu-lation currently given that the mid-level institutions have now been roped in and would qualify for government funding.

The move is in line with the establishment of Kenya Uni-versities and Colleges Central Placement Service that would see private universities eligible to participate in the selection of students to join various institu-tions of higher learning.

fROm PAGE 1 >>

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fROm PAGE 1 >>

NEWS | EVENTS | UPDATES

ENROLmENT IN sELECT kENYAN PRIVATE UNIVERsITIEs (2010/2011)

sOURCE: kNBs

7,158

3,149

3,149

3,651

3,783 2,004

Gazette Summer 2013

BY mIChAEL mANYIBE AND

WANYAmA WAfULA

“The world is at your feet, all you need to do is walk.” This was the theme of the career fair week summer 2013 organized by the Placement and Career Services.

The three-day event, which was held between July 9 and 11 at the auditorium, was graced by Bob Collymore, the Safaricom chief executive, Kenafric’s Mikul Shah, Infotrac’s Angela Ambitho, Godowns Centre’s Joy Mboya and other high profile corporate chiefs and entrepreneurs.

“You should not think or go looking for jobs; instead, think of being an entrepreneur. Today, there is a good business envi-ronment, technological advance-ment and social economic diver-sity due to youth and customers demands.” urged Mr Collymore.

In addition, he advised stu-dents to have a clear goal of what their career path should be and consider their appropriate strong areas and competencies. He lik-ened making the wrong career choice as “putting the ladder on a wall, just to discover it is a wrong

wall”.“Sell yourself by figuring out what makes you marketable. Do not try something that you are not, be yourself. Continue to be marketable not to the CEO only but also people around you co-workers and even the outside public,” added Mr Collymore.

The CEO also warned stu-dents to be careful on what they post on social media because it could reach a third party. How-ever, he said that it is the most powerful platform for network-ing.

Mr Collymore urged students to take networking seriously as the more one networks, the greater the chances of landing one’s dream job.

Once an individual has se-cured a job, Mr Collymore ad-vised, the person must be flexible and ahead of the boss to make an impact on the organization.

He added that it is prudent for one to offer to do some work before he/she asked as well as share solutions with one’s boss but not problems. “You will gain much more respect if you bounce back from your mistakes. chal-lenges at workplace because it is

the best way for them to discover their talent. “It is a tough envi-ronment for employees; you have to choose who you work for, have clear goals and be resourceful,” added Mr Collymore.

Mr Shah emphasized on the importance of having a mentor, whether one is a student or an entrepreneur.

He narrated his tribulations in his search for one, which in-

cluded boarding the plane which his potential mentor was travel-ling in, just to have a chat with him.

Apprentice Africa contestant and entrepreneur Joyce Mbaya said: “Imagine your success path harnessing your imagination to understand yourself, realize your purpose and see the strongest element. It is about realizing your personalities.”

NEWS | EVENTS | UPDATES

Page 5

Safaricom chief executive tips students on career path optionsTop company executives grace this year’s event

Institutions partner to spur enterpriseBY mIChAEL mANYIBE

Colorado State University and USIU have started a post gradu-ate certificate course aimed at encouraging students initiate their own businesses as opposed to looking for jobs.

The course known as the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise has four major aims. First, solve economic, environ-mental and social problem using cutting-edge entrepreneurship strategies. Second, to form ven-ture teams that build and develop international enterprise, to pro-duce high returns on all three bottom line — people, planet and profit. And also to tackle global economic development

challenges through real world project experience.

Scholars from the two univer-sities engaged in a panel discus-sion held at USIU that mainly centred on the Kenya-US busi-ness relations. Panellists cited corruption as one that deters trade between Africa and the US.

“Obama has put up strate-gies to boost Africa –US trade partnerships,” said one of the panellists from Colorado, de-fending his home government that it was ignoring Africa.

“One should establish con-tacts with government agencies, build partnerships, set up a web-site and develop a quality control mechanism,” advised another panellist. “Find your market,

know your target customers, get your portfolio as wide as possible out there.”

Panellists also highlighted challenges of engaging in bilat-eral trade. Some of the challenges involve the starting capital, re-search and economic resources and understanding the difficul-ties concerning knowledge, ex-periences, and understanding.

During the event, Zola Bara-ka, the owner of Mazao Business, which deals in handicraft and other household items shared tips on how to get contacts.

Ms Baraka said that she established contacts through participating in trade fairs and sometimes with sheer luck.

She recalled how a stranger

on the Internet provided her thousands of contacts at a fee of $100.

Ms Baraka said that main buyers are in the United King-dom, United States, including TJ, and Mama Max.

Meanwhile, the USIU and the Business Daily newspaper recently launched a business plan writing competition for East African youths. According to the paper, the competition seeks entrants with socially concious and sustainable business ideas. Winners of the competition will be featured in the paper and awarded USAid scholarships for graduate studies in entrepre-neurship at USIU and Colorado State University.

BY LAWRENCE NZUVE

The recent USIU career fair was no doubt one of the best attended and organised.

However, the real action was on the sidelines of the career fair, precisely at the tents as students passed by the various tents to sample and grab freebies for themselves.

However, a cross-section of the exhibitors expressed disap-pointment about the low turn-out of student at their various stands.

The Institute of Human Resource’s Lydia Mbaka said, last year’s exhibition had a higher student turnout than this year’s.

Products displayedIt was a similar story with Bid-co’s Joyce Wamuyu. The HR official, who was exhibiting for the company, said the percep-tion that they were showcasing products may have contributed to the low turnout. According Allan Muka, director of operations at Recours 4 Kenya Consultants, a job placements consultancy, most of the stu-dents were not keen on what they had to offer.

However, knowing the ‘pe-culiar habits’ of students, Mr Muka and his staff set out to woo and even cajole them to just stop and listen.

This paid off later as the turnout was a huge one.

And on why many jobseekers missed out on opportunities he said: “It was the way jobseek-ers presented their CVs rather than the content, which made prospective employers dismiss them.”

Dignitaries who addressed students were Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore, Linksoft Group boss Anthony Wahome, motivational speaker Joyce Mbaya, Infotrack’s An-gela Ambitho, sports consultant Arnold Kanyang’onda, hotelier Kiran Jethwa, Ministry of For-eign Affairs official Lily Sambu and artistes Eric Wainaina and Godown Art Centre’s boss Joy Mboya.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore with USIU vice-chancellor Freida Brown dur-ing Career Fair Week in July. LAWRENCE NZUVE

Exhibition features for first time at jobs event

Gazette Summer 2013

University graduates are con-sidered the cream of society in any nation.

The rest of society expects this privileged group to have undergone rigorous train-ing and therefore has been equipped with necessary skills and knowledge that enable them to solve social, economic and political challenges in their countries.

However, this perception is drastically changing following reports in the media that a large number of students, both under-graduate and graduate, pay a third party to write their theses, academic projects and answers for take-away assignments.

To make an already bad situ-ation worse, employers have ex-pressed their reservations on the quality of work performed by graduates in their organizations, even those with Masters degrees.

However, this is not news per se; cheating in scholarly work has been in our education system for ages. I therefore feel

the media and education stake-holders are missing a point; the focus should not be on cheating in our learning institutions, but on finding the root causes of the problem and suggest solutions out of it.

So where did the rain start beating us? Recently, in one of my classes, while discussing corruption,we had a heated debate on whether toddlers were cor-rupt; for in-stance, when they demand to be given something a neighbour’s child possess.

This im-plies that c h i l d r e n k n o w i n g l y demanding what they do not deserve is ‘deviating from the ideal’ and therefore corrupt. It does not matter the magnitude, corruption is corruption.

Opponents of this point of view thought that toddlers are just curious and there was nothing wrong having the urge to discover new things in their surroundings.

The argument brought to the fore the rot in our education sys-tem; it actually emanates from our value system. The loose way

in which we define our moral standards is messing us up.

Our value system is shaky, and if we are to rejuvenate it, we need a thorough re-evaluation of the self, and then societal values.

Our children in some way are victims of the system.

Whenever the National Ex-aminations are released, Ken-yans have witnessed the wits used by Standard eight candi-

dates in cheating. The young can-

didates are already extremely cunning and treacher-ous for their age; most of them ac-tually copy from their friends and sometimes sneak notes into the ex-amination room unnoticed.

As they proceed to high school, the ‘cheeky’ stu-dents invent even more sophis-ticated ways of cheating in ex-aminations and the unfortunate circus continues.

We are all to blame for the current rot in our education system.

Speedy measures should be put in place to curb the vice and educate the public on how they can contribute towards a more credible education system.

Page 6

OPINION | COMMENTARY | VIEWS

The series of entrepreneurship events during the Summer Semester served as a revelation to students harbouring business ambitions.

A number of successful company CEOs and businesspersons offered essential insights including making appropriate career choices and sustaining the same.

The events especially emphasized entrepreneurship as well the need for students to equip themselves with knowledge and skills to make them succeed in the business world. Indeed, we concur that students should use the knowledge acquired in school to cre-ate jobs rather than looking for employment. Currently, there are more than 20 universities where a large number of scholars graduate each year. On the other hand, the unemployment rate is at its worst, the youths being the most affected. These two rea-sons are the root causes of the influx of jobless graduates and escalating brain drain as Kenyans migrate abroad in search of greener pastures. We believe that continuous process of nurturing private enterprise culture in students will transform Kenya from agriculture-based to industrialized economy and help achieve the country’s development blueprint Vision 2030.

In addition, establishment of more enterprises will curb insecurity rife in the country. Therefore, the university should ensure that the mentorship program continues by having in place a long-term action plan to ensure the noble initiative does not fail.

It is only through action that such events will make sense and prove that the key speakers’ energy and time was worthwhile.

Focus on entrepreneurship

The thick black smoke that rented the sky at Jomo Kenyatta In-ternational Airport (JKIA) was yet another powerful reminder that Kenya has not learnt from its past.

Although it was not clear when exactly the airport fire began, our disaster response and policies need to be revamped in order to curb the recurrence of such incidents.

Kenya has witnessed similar disasters severally but it seems the responsible quarters are not yet ready to deal with such tragedies. A lack of preparedness was also the case few years ago when the Nakumatt Downtown supermarket blaze and the Sinai fire occurred.

The recent fire at JKIA exposed the government’s soft under-belly too. For the disaster management teams to function prop-erly, the government must invest in training and equipment. With devolution in place, it is essential to create proper structures to ensure counties have adequate resources and expertise to deal with local disasters.

The government should review the disaster management policy drafted in 2009 to proactively put in place measures to minimise disasters and their impacts should they happen.

JKIA will not resume its normal operations for quite a long time after the inferno on August 7 that destroyed the international arrivals terminal. Coincidentally,this is the same date in 1998 Nai-robi US embassy was bombed, killing more than 200 Kenyans.

The consequences are immense since this is the beginning of the tourism season. JKIA serves as main gateway to Kenya and a significant air transport hub for the East and Central African regions.

Therefore, the JKIA incident should serve as a wake up call for not only Kenya Airports Authority but also all public and private institutions to revamp the disaster management strategies.

Lessons from JKIA fire

Vice-chancellor - Prof. Freida Brown

SST Dean - Prof. Jimmy Macharia

Editorial Team:

Editorial/Design Adviser - Simon Libafu

News Editor - Wanyama Wafula

Sports Editor - Michael Manyibe

Photo Editor - Lawrence Nzuve

Features Editor - Pamphillian Ochieno

Chief Sub-Editor - Silvia Mwendia

Sub-Editors - Kimani Nyoike, Grace Akatch

The Gazette

Exam cheating reflects shaky values in society

As they proceed to high school, the ‘cheeky’ students invent even more so-phisticated ways of cheating in examinations

mIChAEL mANYIBE

Gazette Summer 2013

OPINION | COMMENTARY | VIEWS

Page 7

A few weeks ago, Kenya’s Senate passed a motion making the re-cruitment and the participation in the training at National Youth Service (NYS) compulsory for all young people prior to join-ing universities in the country.

All high school graduates will be required to sign up for the NYS, a program that seeks to give young people vocational training, instil patriotism and empower them to help safeguard the country.

However, this is a noble idea depending on what angle one takes.

There is an acute shortage of capacity to even contemplate making this recruitment com-pulsory.

Early in the year when former president Mwai Kibaki presid-ed over the pass-out parade of 5,500 NYS graduates in Gilgil, he noted that the government would expand facilities to cater

for 10,000 recruits. This is a drop in the ocean

considering that schools in Ken-ya churn out tens of thousands of students each year from the various high schools and with the expansion of learning facilities, expected to even soar.

The law re-quires the govern-ment to expand the necessary facilities is not enough consola-tion since the re-cent upsurge of industrial unrest has tested the young government barely three months after being in office. More is expected with the in-troduction of the VAT bill which is expected to directly impact on basic needs satisfaction.

The government will also be

forced to spent more in train-ing centres since the increased number will stretch the facilities already there.

If not looked at properly, this could easily compromise the

training and render the whole exercise, unnecessary.

Furthermore, forc-ing people to join a training which they may not willingly want will foster resentment towards the program and only undertake it as a requirement lead-ing to poor uptake of the skills acquired.

There are also those who feel that if the program is not accompanied by a job place-ment and employment program after graduating, then the skills acquired could be used nega-tively to cause a national security nightmare.

As a matter of urgency, the government should address the issues that contribute to youths engaging in crime so that once trained, the same factors do not recur

Coming at a time when social evils , imparting patriotism and sense of national duty will be promoted through the disci-plined training.

Trainees will also acquire vo-cational training which is miss-ing in the current education set up is another positive thing that this training is expected to foster.

Although it will be a lifeline for people who are unable to progress to colleges or universi-ties due to financial challenges or inability to qualify for tertiary institutions, it will be interest-ing to see what policy the gov-ernment adopts since most of the beneficiaries before have been orphans and destitute families.

Proposed marriage Act not viable in Kenya

WANYAmA WAfULA

The marriage Bill 2013 is a true reflection of how modern rela-tionships are bending towards materialism rather than com-mitment and trust as it were in traditional African marriage.

The Bill, which is already before Parliament, provides new protection to couples in marriages in case of divorce.

If approved, spouses will hold equal right to matrimonial property, polygamous marriages will be legalized and customary marriages will be compelled to registration.

It baffles me to see state re-sources spent on creating laws that stipulates how marriages

should be ended with lawmakers spending long hours debating on the future of spouses. Emphasis should not only be on material possessions of married couples but also making the institution of marriage work without legal coercion. It is not by accident that the phrase “for better and for worse” is part of marriage vows.

Marriage is a sacred union because it is rooted in the divine plan of creation. It solidifies re-lationships that enriched com-munities and nations by bring forth new life and hope.

Our ancestors’ marriages were a natural course and there were no written covenants to spell out terms to be followed in case of separation.

But nowadays, marriage has taken different shapes. The history of human civiliza-tion shows that the tradition of marriage that is independent of time, race, geography and cul-ture. It means it is an aspect of civilization, humanity and hu-

man culture. You can marry in a church, a mosque, in the bush, by a priest, an Imam, attorney general, underwater, on a tree; the core thing in marriage is a contract of commitment with rules and regulations that rep-resent the person’s culture.

Thus, it is illogical to sign a marriage agreement while an-ticipating for a divorce.

However, there are oppos-ing views that the passage of time has resulted in a number of new hurdles in marriage. This is absolutely true, but it does not imply that there were no chal-lenges in the past. The difference between now and then is on how marital problems are resolved.

The Marriage Bill 2013 is not anywhere near to solving these problems. Instead, it provides a leeway in the up surge of marital separation by considering equal division of matrimonial wealth as a solution in case of a divorce. It is possible for people to get married without the basis of love but money as their first priority.

It is beyond reasonable doubt that marriage today is more dynamic than before. Various marital problems have stem up with regards to the today’s ever changing society. This may be as a result of technological ad-vancement that has transformed the world into “global village.”

Through several media, people are bombarded with information from all corners of the world, thus, the traditional culture fades as adoption of common, foreign or new cul-ture occurs.

This makes it more complex to comprehend the perceptions of partners who are about mar-ried.

A man and a woman are nearly completely distinctive creatures, like day and night, specifically psychological aspect.

A scientific report by Mike Rucker, points out the psycho-logical difference between the opposite sexes.

Men and women are from the same planet, however, there

are many differences between the brains of men and women. From the brain size to brain hemisphere, stress management to spatial abilities, relationships to emotions and many more.

Women also tend to have a larger deep limbic system than men and are said to be more in touch with their feelings and bet-ter at expressing their emotions.

This makes women better at connecting with others, but unfortunately they are also more prone to different types of de-pression.

When faced with stressful situations, men usually employ ‘fight or flight’ tactics, while women use a ‘tend or befriend’ response that is rooted in their natural instincts for caring for their children and establishing strong group bonds.

In a nut shell, we have to accept that it is impracticable to regulate marriage. Instead, let us stick to our traditions on marriage. And just a reminder, marriage is natural.

Rethink NYS plan for pre-varsity students

LAWRENCE NZUVE

More is ex-pected with the introduc-tion of the VAT bill which is expected to directly impact on basic needs satisfaction

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

They said

Gazette Summer 2013Page 8

FEATURES | EVENTS | LIFESTYLE

BY PAmPhILLIAN OChIENO

In a world where everyone and everything is driven by mate-rialism, Mohamed Gadafi, an accountant at USIU has taken

the road less travelled. I was also taken aback after I stum-bled on his recorded Taraab radio show on his Facebook page. He was so good that one would not be wrong to conclude that it is only a matter of time before he becomes a household name in our mainstream media. Here is an excerpt of an in-terview with the budding media personality.

Q. You have been an ac-countant for the past seven years, why a sudden venture into radio?A. I believe that God puts everyone on earth with a purpose. I had not found mine. Like many people, my call-ing came late. But I am glad I did. For, I believe it came at God’s perfect timing.

Q. What ignited your interest in broadcast journalism?A. My very close friend is a journalist and works with a popular mainstream media. I have always admired his passion for the job. I guess it was somewhat infectious. He dared me to try it out. I did and surprisingly I liked it too. You know, naturally I like to joke a lot, and accounting is somewhat serious.

The only time you get to have that Aha! moment, is when the double entry balances. I hit the jackpot the moment I held the mic. I have co-hosted in the local radio station,

FM presenter juggles between fulltime job and studio decks to entertain a loyal listener base

Passion for radio sets accountant on path of broadcast journalism

Mohammed Gadafi aka ‘Mjuk-uu Asiyekuwa na Majuto’ behind the mic at USIU 99.9 FM studio. He works at the university. COURTEsY

and now I have my own show at USIU 99.9FM.

Q. How do you find handling two careers? What is the distinction?A. Wow! I like being an accountant. Accounting is a noble profession but I must also say that it allows very minimal creativity from its monotony. However, at the end of the day, it is this profes-sion that puts food on my table.

On the other hand, journalism allows me a lot of creativity and freedom behind the mic. Journalism also allows one to brush shudders with all kind of people.

Q.Tell me how you fast got involved with

USIU radio?A. Interestingly, it was by default. I had been try-ing in vain to get into the realms of local media for a while. However, they wanted me to give a demo tape and USIU has the facilities to record my demo.

To my surprise, USIU had radio and television studios. The rest, as they say, is history. I now host “Dira ya USIU” on Saturdays from 11.00-1.00pm. For a while, USIU radio had been searching for a Swahili presenter in vain. I guess opportunity just meets the prepared.

Q. What was your first experience on live radio?A. The adrenaline rush! When the mic was raised and I was asked to speak live on air, I was thrown into disarray. My mind went totally blank and even my well rehearsed presentation and jokes could not come out. I asked my presenter “talk what?” Yet I was live on air and my listeners heard! The mic had to be faded off! My director however, calmed me down by assuring me that it was common for begin-ners to panic.

Q. What steps have you taken to a train as a journalist?A. Currently I minor in Broadcast Journalism, I be-lieve this blends well with my business background.

Q. What challenges do you face as a USIU 99.9 FM presenter?A. Not all the time does USIU 99.5 FM presents news at the top of each hour, and yet, I am a Swahili presenter in a multicultural environment.

Secondly, I wish USIU Radio was online as well. At times I wish I could be listened to by a wider

population. However, due to the limited pa-rameters set by the CCK, USIU radio remains a community radio. This means I only get a limited audience.

Q. What do you find most challeng-ing in broadcast journalism?A. To excel in broadcast you need to be up to speed with current affairs. You need to be the first one to deliver news. Listeners are ever demanding listeners. Otherwise, you will lose them.

You must also be a good listener and abreast with the latest technology because

listeners are tech-savvy.

Q. What’s the best and worst thing that ever happened to you while broadcast-ing? A. The best is when I was allowed to anchor

at the USIU TV Studio in both Swahili and English language. My most memorable moment is when fans commended my good command of Swahili, a break from the twisted Swahili they were to and wanted to know who is Mjukuu Asiyekuwa Na Majuto.

My worst moment is one day when I was about to read 7pm news on radio. A lady, not well known to me blocked me from reading news. She insinuated that reading news was not bequeathed of someone of my status.

Q.If you could change one thing about jour-nalism, what would that be? A. I wish journalists would concentrate more on developmental news. As well, other stake holders should be accorded the right to information.

Gazette Summer 2013

FEATURES | EVENTS | LIFESTYLE

Page 9

BY BERYL OBIERO

“The Internet is a place to connect, spread love, share, meet new people, interact and enjoy. Why

are we making the Internet a death trap? I am here to learn. To interact. To be taught. To laugh. To meet people and to have fun. End cyber bullying now.” — Janet Mbugua, TV per-sonality.

This was the Citizen TV news anchor’s response to the mas-sive attack that Mirfat Musa received online in response to her infamous appearance on KTN’s prime time dating show Tujuane.

Many Kenyans joined the bandwagon on playful jibes at Musa who was renamed “Madharau Musa”. The public criticism was on account of her behaviour where she chastised and belittled her blind date on national television.

The response to this was me-mes, videos and all manner of jokes about her on the social media. The climax of the cyber bullying was her Facebook hate page “Kenyans Against Susan of Tujuane” which had a record 13,000 “likes” nine hours after it was set up. As Ms Mbugua said, “Yes, Mirfat did her part. She failed. She erred. She may have

annoyed some of us and hurt some of us. But, ask yourself, how does it help you, by spend-ing endless hours on the Internet desperately destroying her soul? With hate comments, insults and ‘photoshopped’ mockery?”

Contagion theoryAccording to past studies cyber bullying is mass behaviour — a common phenomenon classified under the Contagion Theory.

The theory explains the ac-tions of group of people who are not related, act collectively without thinking or interpret-ing their actions. This leads to a vicious cycle where people feed mindlessly on one another’s ir-rational behaviour.

Acting irrationally is aca-demically referred to as mill-ing. In the instance of cyber bullying, the masses who are separated by space all have a common interest in a particular subject. Their feelings towards the subject is shared, therefore, cyberspace becomes an outlet for these pent up emotions. Instead of individuals careful-ly thinking about their actions they behave in a circular and irrational manner. They feed off of each other’s actions not rationally and independently.

KISS FM presenter Lynda Nyangweso received massive at-

tack on Twitter about her weight. One of the tweets read, “Linda Nyangweso has two identity cards.” Many people who par-took in this unfortunate cyber bully fest claimed they were just doing it in good humour without putting much thought to their actions.

The common trend is that people just want to be part of the fun and be part of the latest trending topic out there.

Research shows that the ef-fects of cyber bullying include low self esteem, increased sui-cidal ideation, fear, anger and depression. This is more so due to the public nature of these at-tacks. People relish the personal details of an individual’s life as fodder for entertainment and ridicule.

Cyber bullying is not limited to adults. There have been in-stances in Kenya, where teen-age girls have created Facebook groups to abuse their fellow classmates turned rivals. A classic example of such was a case reported in 2009 at a girls’ high school.

A group of girls relentlessly abused the victim calling for her death on Facebook whereby they had started a hate page for allegedly stealing one of their boyfriends.

The victim’s sister reported the page, which was subse-quently pulled down from the social networking site. However, cyber bullying reached extreme level as the victim had to transfer from the school because of the isolation and ridicule from her

friends. In the US, at least seven states

have passed legislation against digital harassment. In Califor-nia, state legislature passed a law that would deal specifically with cyber bullying. This law gives school administrations permis-sion to discipline those involved in cyber bullying. It is time for Kenya to take such strides. If online bullying happens to high level personalities, what about the many unreported cases that go unnoticed.

This could even be due to a lack of awareness and conse-quences of mass behavior, that has potential to escalate. This concept has been documented clearly as a socio-scientific re-sponse. The masses act uncon-trollably and irrationally.

Cyber bullying classic example of Internet mob gone overboardTaking its cue from the widespread social media hate, Kenya has seen a spate of harassment on the Web

Cyber bullying among Kenyans on the Internet has become very common, especially on the social media as netizens hurl abuses at one another and prominent people they dislike. LAWRENCE NZUVE

Kibera locals seek solution to land rowsBY kImANI NYOIkE

Kibera is Kenya’s largest slum. The name Kibra is Nubian, for forestland. You do not notice the complexities and the contradic-tions until you get to speak to the inhabitants.

The 2009 Kenya National Bu-reau of Statistics census showed that 170,070 people live here. UN-Habitat estimates the popu-lation to be around 350,000 and one million people. However, the

Map Kibera Project projects this to be not more than 270,000 people.

We sought to find out the his-torical issues surrounding four communities: the Nubians, Luo, Kikuyu and Luhya, by organizing Kibera Dialogues. The key thing here was to have one particular tribe speak out.

The community we visited next discussed these problems and raised their own. The dia-logue culminated in a major

forum included the four com-munities.

Makina, one of the 13 villages that make up Kibera, is mostly a

Nubian zone. The conditions are as extreme as the rest of the slum. Nubians claim to be the first in-habitants of Kibera, which at that time, was a small settlement area and the rest was a forest. They believe that other communities have been the source of Kibera’s problems.

At Laini Saba, we came across a completely new narrative. The members of a dominant com-munity in the area, most of them aged between 50 and 90,

claimed that the first president of Kenya,the late Jomo Kenyatta, allocated them land here.

When the government began the Slum Upgrading Programme in 2009, Laini Saba residents welcomed the scheme.

The post-election violence of 2007-2008 is also a thorny issue here.

“People invaded Laini Saba, took over our houses, and do not pay rent to date,” said one resident.

Gazette Summer 2013

BY kImANI NYOIkE

When you first catch a glimpse of Christopher Baraka, it is hard to imagine he currently lives what many students dream while still in university. He has a tiny — almost unnoticeable frame — the kind that could pass for any high school student.

Chris, as his friends know him, joined USIU back in Spring 2007. He graduated in August 2010, with a degree in Interna-tional Relations and minor in

Health Psychology. However, this is not what encapsulates his journey to who he is today.

He is most notable as hav-ing actively taken part in the March 2013 General Election as an observer and Trainer of Trainers for the Elections Ob-servation Group. While there, he educated election observers and supervisors from all over the country. Through this, he was key in the adoption of the Parallel Vote Tabulation meth-odology set up by a group of

NGOs. “In between 2007 and 2010, I got involved in a few things around school. I say a few because I cannot compare that with what I did during my graduate studies,” he says.

Besides joining numerous clubs, he co-founded the IR Forum, one of the most popular clubs in the university. “In Summer 2009, I joined work-study program. In the beginning, it was difficult get-ting an open position, and was at one time close to giving up.

One day, I got a call for an inter-view from the senior librarian Damiana Kiilu and voilà! I was asked to report the next day.”

Upon his graduation, he did muse on getting a job. “Now that I had my degree, the re-ality hit me. An automatic employment was not part of my courses. After some of my mentors helped me muse over joining the graduate program. “I spoke to my mentor, Dr. Fatma Ali, (assistant professor of In-ternational Relations) and Wil-

son Komba at the Financial Aid office. I would learn that as a Graduate Research Assistant, USIU would actually pay half my fees,” he recalls. “My gradu-ation was on a Saturday, and the next Thursday, here I was at the auditorium again for graduate orientation.”

He took up the chance and worked with Prof Macharia Munene and Dr Ali. He also ran for and won the Graduate Representative seat in the 2011 SAC elections.

colonised until the 1960s when most African countries regained their sov-ereignty through armed struggle. It is out of these movements that Pan African leaders from the continent emerged. Former presidents Jomo Kenyatta, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkurumah, Patrice Lumumba and Gamal Abdel Nasser were among the pioneers of Pan Africanism in the post-independence dispensation.

Nelson Mandela also led the Af-rican National Congress in battle for the liberation of South Africa from apartheid white rule.

The goal of Pan Africanism at the time was to champion liberation, solidarity and emancipation of the African people from the chains and shackles of colonialism, which led to the formation of the Organisation of African Union (OAU).

In the 1970s and 80s, African lead-ers diverted this cause and transformed it to a form of ‘afrocentrism.’ Dicta-tor Mobutu Seseseko , the former president of Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire is best remembered for plundering his mineral-rich country and overseeing

economic deterioration. This trend was replicated across

Africa with despotic leaders failing to abide by the rule of law and entrench-ing authoritarian systems.

The misrule gave rise to military coups and long-running civil strife as masses revolted against the African ‘Big Men’.

The leaders in partnership with multinationals also ripped off Africa of its vast resources. Some of these problems still persist.

Does it mean that we are a conti-nent that is beyond repair, and hope-less case? I believe that with all these African problems, there are African solutions.

We should get rid of afro-pessi-mism and inculcate the ideology of afro-positivism.

We need to realize that, if you want to see a transformation around you, be the change you want first. It is about time that African people rise up and position themselves on the global stage.

This is a cry for Africa to rise up, to awaken the sleeping giant within

it and soar unto the skies. Long live Africa!

Pan Africanism dream: where did we get it wrong?BY NINGEL AWOUR

Pan Africanism was conceived to be an ideology, a movement or a philosophy that

seeks to create, inspire and em-bolden solidarity of all Africans in the world. The concept also sought to make it known that Af-ricans not only share a common bond but also that their fates and fortunes are intertwined.

Pan Africanism has its ori-gins and roots in slavery, racism and annexation of the continent.

During the times of slavery, African slaves preserved their roots by simply ‘carrying over’ their ethics, norms and cultures to the new world. Although their masters subjected them to brutality and other acts of human abuses. This served as the ‘ground zero’ for Pan-Africanism.

As a result of African con-sciousness among the slaves in America, Europe and Carib-bean, an insurrection was born. They revolted and agitated to be treated with dignity, integrity and respect.

As we go down the memory lane, there are champions of Pan Africanism who conceptualized

the whole idea and made it into an organization to boost solidar-ity and unity of Africans.

W.E.B Du Bois played a key role in this era and fought for rights and freedom of Africans.

The African American schol-ar and activist was instrumental in the organization of Pan Afri-can congresses whose inception was 1900 in London.

Between 1900 and 1945, five congresses had taken place in Europe and the US, bringing to-gether blacks from the Americas, Europe and the African conti-nent.

The slogan ‘Africa for Afri-cans’ was mooted by another prominent Pan Africanist of all time, Marcus Garvey. He believed in African national-ism and strongly agitated for Africa’s independence. He also called for the African descend-ants in Europe and Americas to return to Africa for complete economic, political and social emancipation.

The European imperial pow-ers partitioned the African con-tinent during the Berlin confer-ence between 1884 and 1845.

Africans were clearly al-ienated, marginalized and

Decades after states in the continent attained independence, Africa is yet to adopt unifying ideology

Former South African Presi-dent Nelson Mandela: Continent’s icon of freedom struggle. INTERNET sOURCEs

Alumnus charts course beyond campus AFTER SCHOOL

GUEST SPOT | ESSAY

Page 10

Gazette Summer 2013

BY sILVIA mWENDIA

Meet Kevin Hungai, a sophomore Ap-plied Computer T e c h n o l o g y

(APT) major who developed a game-based learning app which was showcased during Summer Semester’s Fusion Week.

Hungai’s education-oriented app is targeted at 4-13 year olds. The app is a video game which features a superhero who goes around teaching children gram-mar and pronunciation.

Seeing that most Kenyan app developers target their apps to-wards areas such as agriculture, it was quite unsual that Hungai should go into the education sector.

“I went through the 8-4-4 system so I know how messy it can get. You don’t understand stuff but the teachers just go on teaching,” said Hungai.

It is because of this expe-rience that Hungai decided to develop the app. In his words, Hungai says that he is a social entrepreneur. Not only does he want to make a living out of this profession but help transform society while at it.

“A lot of kids learn though

visuals so we though of coming up with a concept where we can disguise in playing so that the kids can also enjoy it,” added Hungai on the app.

Techie has not been doing this alone though. With the help of his friend, Juzer Yu-nus, they were able to come up with a start-up company which develops other apps. Yunus, an IST major, works on the busi-ness side of the company while Hungai is more on technical side and develops the apps.

Being only 5 months old, it is quite remarkable that they have been able to already develop this

education app and are still work-ing on others. On how they were able to develop an app in such a short time, Hungai talks of in-vesting their own money into the company.

Hungai has also been able to develop other apps for dif-ferent type of clients but due to the nature of the applications, he decided to maintain client confidentiality.

App development is not something Hungai was taught. It was more of a hobby he took interest in after high school. One can therefore say he is a self-taught app developer.

Hungai sees the app target-ing mainly parents and schools.

“The world is going digital and schools are struggling to get in on that. We see more schools today using ipads and tablets. They will, however, need content for these devices so that is where we come in,” noted Kevin.

With the new digital gov-ernment and the free laptops promised for class one pupils, schools have a lot to benefit from this app. It is for this reason that Hungai’s app is currently being cross-examined at the Kenya In-stitute of Curriculum Develop-ment in Nairobi and if it passes, it may be incorporated into the schools learning systems.

Parents are also a major tar-get audience for Hungai and the start-up company.

“ I know parents today who on more than five devices. Instead of parents worrying about their children playing violent games, they can trust their children are learning something while play-ing the video game app,” said Hungai.

Hungai is a self-taught app developer who took up interest after completing his high school studies.

App development has really taken hold in Kenya and the likes of Hungai are definitely a force we cannot ignore. The private sector has really taken to nurtur-ing such talent. A good exam-ple would be app development competitions held especially

in universities by Safaricom. Open spaces which allow tech enthusiasists or techies as they are more commonly kown to meet up and collaborate are also coming up. A good example would have to be iHub located on Ngong road.

The government on the other hand is slacking a bit and will have to hasten their pace if they are to keep up with the fast changing world of technology. The government’s new digital strategy may however change that.

USIU also threw its weight behind this new app to which Hungai was very positive about.

“The feedback was good. Some even suggested what we should add and what we should remove so it was a good recep-tion at the end of the day,” said Hungai on the school’s support.

Hungai’s major, Applied Computer Technology, which is still relatively new consider-ing that his year is the oldest has also helped in creating interest in app development among the student. “It’s exciting to see fel-low students get interested in this field,” said Hungai.

Hungai has actually written a proposal to the school so as to form a club for app development whereby interested students will have a plac to hone their skills.

If Hungai’s success is any-thing to go by, we may just have the next Steve Jobs lurk-ing among us.

Tech-savvy students cash in on appsDevelopers come up with video game to teach children language skills

BY WANYAmA WAfULA

Michezo Africa has launched a short film dubbed Little Girl with a storyline based on peer pressure among young adults.

This group, which is famous in theatre arts created their first movie, under fellow student Keith Oleng as the director. Although the psychology stu-dent, who acquired filmmaking skills from Central Tafe College in Perth Australia, has initially been involved in a number of productions.

The film tells a story of a girl called Lilly with good morals and virtues but falls into wrong company who take her out on a birthday party. The beautiful

ladies promise her full amuse-ment in a bid to make her accept to go to a prestigious club. Un-fortunately, Lilly’s harassment by the owner of the party marks a turning point as she also joins the ‘bad girls’ company.

“Danger sometimes presents

itself in harmless forms but we rarely see that friends put you in a situation that eventually hurts you,” explained Oleng.

Little Girl, which was adopt-ed from a poem written by the lead character, Yvette Akoth and premiered during the Campus

Awards, was donated to the counseling office to accom-pany counseling talks during orientation. It is also available on YouTube. Oleng wrote main script for the film.

Michezo Africa collaborated with the university administra-tion which allowed them to use its facilities, easing transport ex-penses as well as saving on time. Artistes also provided clothes that production required as costumes and on-set make-up.

According to Oleng, the main challenges were mainly inade-quate equipment and resources to shoot the film.

Deficiency on manpower was another hurdle during the production. He had to double

up as a filmmaker and trainer of Michezo Africa members who were doing it for the first time.

“I had to teach them on how to handle equipment and act on screen as opposed to theatre since on screen act you need to die a little down to theatre, but I am proud of their performance,” says Oleng.

The prodigy also expressed the need of sufficient equipment to work around situations like some that forced them to relo-cate scenes.

However, he acknowledged it was a good experience for both the producer and actors who were involved in the four-day shoot and three-and-a-half months of editing.

Theatre group’s first film highlights peer influence

Keith Oleng shooting ‘Little Girl’. LEFT: The poster for the film. COURTEsY

Applied Computer Technology student Musa Muliro who has created a computer game app. LAWRENCE NZUVE

FEATURES | EVENTS | LIFESTYLE

Page 11

Gazette Summer 2013

ENTERTAINMENT | MUSIC | AWARDS

Page 12

BY mIChAEL mANYIBE

August 1 was a night like no other as USIU fraternity con-gregated on beautifully lighted tents behind the library to award outstanding performers in the institution.

The annual event dubbed Campus Awards is organized by the student body, Students Affairs Council(SAC) to encour-age students, faculty and staff to always stand out in whatever they do in campus.

The winners are voted by the USIU community, who are expected to have interacted the nominees.

Campus Awards Night saw many new personalities win medals in different categories.

Some the heroes and hero-ines were, was Maria Lazaro who won the best International student award, Githinji Mwai

best photographer, Keith Oleng best Video Producer, James Ka-hindi- Lifetime Achievement, John Kabuu best sports patron, Wilberforce Tonui best Course Advisor, and Kennedy Awuor for Most outstanding lecturer in the business school.

The sportsmen were also rewarded for their stunning performance in various cham-pionships. Meshack Nakolo took home Most Valuable Player award in soccer men category, Cynthia Irankunda was best lady basketballer Kevin Kigotho being men’s best basketballer. Caroline Ngarachu was the best lady in hockey with Shabazali Shah being best in same sport. Donald Omondi was voted the Most Valuable Rugby player.

In volleyball, Sheila Chep-koech and Christopher Muchemi were voted best players. Fiona Kwatemba and Maximus Musau

were the best softballers.Other sportsmen who shone

during the night to remember included Dennis Mwenda and Wambui Kibathi in swimming, Julius Mbuvi and Berryll Sarah in tennis, Moyen Hassan and

Moses in Taekwondo. Rashid Korir was the best Karate-man while Daniel Odidi was the Chess Master.

Perhaps the event could not have worthwhile without pre-senting the Most Outstanding

Sports Team 2013 ward to the USIU Flames, Most outstand-ing coach to David Maina, Most Improved Sports team to Soft-ball ladies, captain of the year to Linda Mfuchi, sportsman of the year to Pauline Naise.

BY WANYAmA WAfULA

When stories of local music are told, hip hop artistes do not re-ceive a fair share compared to their counterparts in spite of their excellence.

Zacharria Mwaura alias Zakah, who ruled the airwaves through his debut song Dandora Love in 2002 is such a talent whose story remains unknown to many today. The Hip-hop star is back with a bang and currently working on his new album named Desturi, which was set for launch in August. In this album, he has collabo-rated with a number of artists like Canibal, Rabit, Wyre, Biam and Jua Kali.

Zakah began his rapping ca-reer at Andaki Studio at Nai-robi’s Kariobangi South Estate. His music revolves around real life experiences, social issues and also advocates a positive cause for the youths. The bulk of his work is based on what surrounds him.

“I also like working with different producers to avoid monotony and to attain defer-ent sounds,” he said. “I have recorded songs with Dungeon, Head bangers, Mandugu Digital, Tumaini Records, Love Child Records studios and I am do-

ing my new video with Cream Vision crew,” he added.

Participating in the rap com-petition at Club Florida 2000 in Nairobi, the soft spoken laid-back rapper began his hip-hop career while in Standard 8. Born 1984 and raised in Dandora Phase 2 estate, a Nairobi outskirt occupied by low income com-munities and famous for social crimes, Zakah had a chance to meet the fathers of Kenyan hip-

hop. Swalle aka Roba, Zakah,s neighbor, introduced the young latent rapper to the legendary group Kalamashaka. Other art-ists joined later and formed the Mau Mau group.

“I was inspired by Kala-mashaka in my first meeting when the famous US rappers Lost Boyz had paid them a visit,” he said. “The two rap groups sporting dreadlocks, baggy jeans and bling blings, it was hard to

identify the Kalamashaka, at least before the dialogue began.”

Through music, the simple and down-to-earth artist has had various exposures that truly prove he is a celebrity on his own. Zakah first flew beyond Kenyan borders when he went to Stockholm, Sweden for the launch of Kilio cha Haki album in 2005 that involved the entire Mau Mau crew. He has also per-formed in concerts at Mandela Memorial site in Johannesburg, South Africa and Afro jam festi-val in Berlin, Germany in 2011.

Locally, Zakah has also shared the stage with popular Tanzanian rappers; Professor Jay, AY, Mwana FA during the Sauti za Busara concert in 2011 Zanzibar. “It was unbelievable to see and hear Tanzanians sing-ing and dancing to our music” he revealed.

He has performed at Wapi concert that was formally hosted and sponsored by the British council to nurture young talents in hip hop, graffiti, writing and poetry. The event is now held monthly at the Sarakasi dome, Ngara. The star is also involved in the Hip Hop Caravan, an in-ternational project that aims at linking Africa through music. South Africa, Bukina Faso, Tuni-sia, Senegal and Zimbabwe are

some of the countries engaged in this project.

In Kenya, hip hop has grown over the last two decades. The number of producers and ar-tistes in the music industry has increased immensely. It is no longer the same situation of the early 1990s where, the Swahili Nation and Kalamashaka, were the only popular groups.

Today, hip hop artistes are not only in the music business but are also involved in a numer-ous activities that range from communal work to business enterprises.

Besides music, Zakah was in-volved peace campaigns during the March General Election. He was among artistes who through a project dubbed One Love Ken-ya; Upendo Moja Kenya criss-crossed Nairobi to sensitize the populace on peace.

“I , Bonie of the P-Unit and DTIC sound are involved in children mentorship program at Watoto Wakuu, based at Moun-tain View, Westlands, where I teach hip hop skills and support them financially” he said.

Apart from running a busi-ness of producing the famous Ukoo Flani ware, he is also working with AMREF Kenya to educate the youths against drug abuse.

Newcomers scoop top Campus Awards

Hip hop pioneers rule the airwaves

Zacharria Mwaura alias Zakah during a past music awards event. COURTEsY

Easy FM’s Price Nesta with Denver Ochieng after the latter received an award for the Best Radio Presenter at the event. NICk ThUITA

An MC during the Campus Night Awards gala. NICk ThUITA

Gazette Summer 2013

TECHNOLOGY | UPDATE | REVIEW

Page 13

BY LAWRENCE NZUVE

A recent research by a technology security expert should make the entire African cell phone users population worried

According to Berlin based Security Research Labs CEO Karsten Nohl, fraud-sters can remotely access SIM card by sending a special text message which some older generation SIMs respond to, inadvertently giving out the users security information. This information can then be used to spy on the user and to copy the SIM card’s details making it easy to be robbed. He said most phones cut contact after recognizing the signature as being a fake - but in about a quarter of cases, the handsets sent back an error message including an encrypted version of the SIM’s authentication code.

SIM (subscriber identity module) cards effectively act as a security token, authenticating a user’s identity with their network operator. They also store a lim-

ited amount of data such as text messages, contacts’ telephone numbers and details used for some applications - including a number of payment and banking services. This is where it gets interesting.

Mr. Nohl says that mobile banking customers in Africa rely on the security offered by their SIM cards but he had found a way to discover the authentication code by sending a device a text message masquerading as a communication from the user’s mobile operator.

The message contained a bogus digital signature for the network.

The encryption is supposed to pre-vent the authentication code being dis-covered, but Mr. Nohl said that in about half of these cases it was based on a 1970s coding system called Digital Encryption Standard (DES), which was once thought secure but could now be cracked “within two minutes on a standard computer”.

Once the attacker had this informa-tion, Mr. Nohl said, they could upload malware to the SIM written in the Java programming language.

He said these could be used by the hacker to send texts from the device to

premium rate numbers they had set up, to discover and listen in to the target’s voicemail messages and to track their location.

In addition, he warned that combined with other techniques, it could act as a surveillance tool.

“SIM cards generate all the keys you use to encrypt your calls, your SMS and your internet traffic,” said Mr. Nohl.

“If someone can capture the encrypted data plus have access to your SIM card, they can decrypt it.

“Operators often argue that it’s not possible to listen in on 3G or 4G calls - now with access to the SIM card, it very much is.”

Mr. Nohl said that his research sug-gested about an eighth of all SIM cards were vulnerable to the hack attack - rep-resenting between 500 million to 750 million devices and that most of the SIMS in Africa are based on the older technology and hence more vulnerable.

Industry organization - the GSMA - said it was looking into the findings.

“Karsten’s early disclosure to the GSMA has given us an opportunity for preliminary analysis,” said a spokeswom-an for the association, which represents global network operators.

BY LAWRENCE NZUVE

The Canon 7D is the digital SLR that many Canon fans have been waiting for, with a list of long-absent features that the lineup has needed to take on cameras like the Nikon D300. Not shying away from the megapixel race, the new Canon 7D has a brand new 18-megapixel APS-C sensor with a 1.6x crop factor.

It is no wonder it has found ready fans at USIU where since the begin-ning of the year many students have acquired this magical machine. It is a good camera for photography enthusiasts professional video makers alike

Not shying away from the megapixel race, the new Canon 7D has a brand new 18-megapixel APS-C sensor with a 1.6x

crop factor. Each pixel is 4.3 microns in size, though Canon says that with their

gapless micro lenses, the new sensor gathers plenty of light.

The Canon 7D is designed for speed, with dual DIGIC 4 chips to speed process-ing of these large 14-bit files, as well as keep up with the shutter’s 8-frame-per-second top speed. Even the sensor had

to be tweaked to enable such speed, with an 8-channel

readout to more quickly draw

the image off the sensor. The Canon 7D’s buffer can handle 94

JPEGs at top speed, or 15 RAW images.For its part, the Canon 7D’s shutter

mechanism is rated at 150,000 cycles, and is the same design used by the 1D-series of Canon digital SLRs.

EV compensation has been expanied to five stops in either direction, and the ISO ranges from 100 to 6,400, with an ex-panded setting up to 12,800. The Canon 7D also sports an HD movie mode that will capture full HD at 30p.

The built-in flash has a wider range to handle up to 15mm wide-angle lenses, like the new EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, and the flash can also serve as the remote commander for up to three groups of flashes, another first for Canon.

Other new features include an electronic level, a RAW button, and a new multi-function button for quick, programmable access to various func-tions. And don’t forget the new 19-point autofocus system, complete with a new LCD viewfinder display overlay, com-plete with a grid, obviating the need for interchangeable screens. - ADDITIONAL REVIEW BY ImAGING REsOURCE

Fraudsters target old generation SIM cards in Africa, study shows

Canon 7D attracts camera lovers with its versatile features

Mobile phones in the continent based on old techcnology vulnerable to attacks by hackers

Gazette Summer 2013

GLOBAL | NEWS | UPDATES

Page 14

A British woman returned from a holi-day in Peru hearing scratching noises inside her head to be told she was being attacked by flesh-eating maggots living inside her ear.

Rochelle Harris, 27, said she remem-bered dislodging a fly from her ear while in Peru but thought nothing more of it until she started getting headaches and pains down one side of her face and woke up in Britain one morning with liquid on her pillow.

Thinking she had a routine ear in-fection caused by a mosquito bite, she sought medical treatment at the Royal Derby Hospital in northern England, where a consultant noticed maggots in a small hole in her ear-canal.

“I was very scared. Were they in my brain?” said Harris, recounting her ordeal in a new Discovery Chan-nel documentary series called “Bugs, Bites and Parasites” to be aired in the UK from July 21.

Doctors tried first to flush the mag-gots out of the ear using olive oil.

“It was the longest few hours that I have ever had to wait... I could still feel them and hear them and knowing what those scratching sounds were, and knowing what that wriggling feeling was, that just made it all the worse,” she said.- TORONTOsUN.COm

Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are employing the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects. The FBI has been developing hacking tools for more than a decade, but rarely discloses its techniques publicly.

Earlier this year, a federal warrant application in a Texas identity-theft case sought to use software to extract files and covertly take photos using a computer’s camera. The judge denied the applica-tion, saying, among other things, that he wanted more information on how info collected from the computer would be minimized to remove information on innocent people.

Since at least 2005, the FBI has been using “web bugs” that can gather a computer’s Internet address, lists of programs running and other info. The FBI used that type of tool in 2007 to trace a person who was eventually convicted of emailing bomb threats in Washington state, for example.

Also, the FBI “hires people who have hacking skill, and they purchase tools that are capable of doing these things,” said a former official in the agency. “When you do, it’s because you don’t have any other choice,” the official said.

Surveillance technologies are coming

under increased scrutiny after disclosures about data collection by the National Se-curity Agency. The NSA gathers bulk data on millions of Americans, but former U.S. officials say law-enforcement hacking is targeted at very specific cases and used sparingly. Still, civil-liberties advocates say there should be clear legal guidelines to ensure hacking tools aren’t misused. “People should understand that local cops are going to be hacking into surveillance targets,” said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. “We should have a debate about that.”

Mr. Soghoian, who is presenting on the topic Friday at the DefCon hacking conference in Las Vegas, said informa-tion about the practice is slipping out as a small industry has emerged to sell hacking tools to law enforcement. He has found posts and resumes on social networks in which people discuss their

work at private companies helping the FBI with surveillance.

A search warrant would be required to get content such as files from a suspect’s computer, said Mark Eckenwiler, a senior counsel at Perkins Coie LLP who until December was the Justice Department’s primary authority on federal criminal surveillance law. Continuing surveillance would necessitate an even stricter stand-ard, the kind used to grant wiretaps.

An official at the Justice Department said it determines what legal authority to seek for such surveillance “on a case-by-case basis.” But the official added that the department’s approach is exemplified by the 2007 Washington bomb-threat case, in which the government sought a warrant even though no agents touched the computer and the spyware gathered only metadata.

In 2001, the FBI faced criticism from civil-liberties advocates for declining to disclose how it installed a program to record the keystrokes on the computer of mobster Nicodemo Scarfo Jr. to capture a password he was using to encrypt a document. He was eventually convicted.

Officers often install surveillance tools on computers remotely, using a docu-ment or link that loads software when the person clicks or views it. In some cases, the government has secretly gained physical access to suspects’ machines and installed malicious software using a thumb drive, a former US official said.

The bureau has controls to ensure only “relevant data” are scooped up, the person said.- PRTEChNOLOGYNEWs.COm

US Agency employs hackers who develop software to keep tabs on cyber criminals

A recent suggestion by Pope Francis (pictured) that atheists could also be “redeemed” by God has led the church to return to medieval rhetoric – with an official Vatican spokesman forced to clarify that non-believers are indeed destined for hell.

The controversy began after Pope Francis went on a charm offensive last week, in an attempt to build bridges with atheists. During a sermon at the Vatican, the first Latin American pontiff proclaimed: “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”

The admission that Catholics do not have a monopoly on being good people was initially welcomed by secularists. “While humanists have been saying for years that one can be good without a god, hearing this from the leader of the Catholic Church is quite heartening,” said

Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association.

But the mood of goodwill was short-lived. Just a day later, in a thinly veiled rebuke of the new Pope, who took over from Pope Benedict XVI in March, Vati-can spokesman Father Thomas Rosica made it clear what was really meant.

Reacting to the news, the high pro-file atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins tweeted: “Atheists go to heaven? Nope. Sorry world, infallible pope got it wrong.

Vatican steps in with alacrity.” And Sean Oakley, founder of the Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society at Reading Uni-versity, said: “This latest episode is only another demonstration of how much in-fluence the conservative lobby has within the Catholic Church.”

Pavan Dhaliwal, head of public affairs, British Humanist Association, said: “It is of no concern to us what the Vatican thinks about the afterlife and atheists. They ought rather to focus on putting right the damage they do in this world, especially in relation to basic rights such as access to contraception and LGBT and women’s rights.”

David McKeegan of The Freethinker journal, said: “We atheists were over the moon when the Pope told us that we were all going to heaven. Then when the Vati-can told us that it wasn’t true, and that we were going to hell after all, we were sick as parrots.”- INDEPENDENTNEWs.COm

Pope’s remarks kick up a storm

WORLD IN BRIEF

German tourist takes blog revenge on the man who stole her smartphone

A German tourist who had her smartphone pinched from a beach on Ibiza has taken revenge on the thief who failed to switch off the device’s photograph upload function by turning pictures of his life into a blog.

After returning home to Germany, the young woman discovered that pho-tographs of the robber and his home city Dubai were automatically uploaded to her “Dropbox” file storage space from her stolen HTC smartphone.

“Everything was gone. Money, purs-es, smartphones, passports, birthday presents and clothes. This must have happened in the time span of 15 min-utes. Well, that sucked quite hard,” the unnamed woman wrote of the robbery on her blog. “Back in Germany, a few days after Christmas, four months after the Ibiza trip, I turned on my computer and noticed 15 new pictures inside my Dropbox camera upload folder. Long story short: the thief of my smartphone didn’t delete my Dropbox app, not to mention my login data. Every photo he takes appears instantly on my com-puter, what a douche.”-- TELEGRAPh.COm

Too dumb for smartphone

Maggots in woman’s ear

FBI hack Android phones

Gazette Summer 2013 Page 15

BY sTEPhEN mUkhONGI

Rugby old boys played against the current team at Rugby Foot-ball Union of East Africa Ground in Nairobi

The rugby match is a long time tradition of the university bringing together USIU Alumni (wazee) verses continuing students(vijana).

The event may pass for any sports entertainment but it serves more than just that; a ceremonial match, awards, photo session, guidance seces-sion, and barbecue characterizes the event.

On this particular outing Wazee carried the day. Howev-er, the game ended prematurely

Apparently, the ground was also booked by the Kenya Un-

der- 19 National Rugby team for a training session at the same time. The event however went on as scheduled

After the game, an awarding ceremony was held with best performers being presented trophies . Mitch Ojiambo was

named the Most Valuable Player on vijana side while Al-lan Omuka took the award on the Wazee’s team

“ It is a very important event where ongoing students get a chance to meet up the old stu-dents and share experiences, both past and current,” said Prof. Max Muniafu, the patron of the rugby team.

Prof Muniafu added that the old guard to offer valuable lessons to the current crop of players, as a legacy to carry the tradition forward. However, the most significant moment of the occasion was the guidance ses-sion. Counsel was offered pre-dominantly by “wazee” Alumni.

Sports coordinator Boniface Salano, and Prof Muniafu who shared their experiences.

“We should always be proud of wearing the university’s jersey whenever you go out represent-ing the team,” he urged the uni-versity’s alumni.Separately, the USIU rugby team participated in the second edition of the Masaku sevens which was held on the July 27 and 28 at the Machakos Golf Club, in Machakos town.

GAZETTE SPORTS

Old boys outshine ‘vijana’ in derby Alumni rugby team outshines varsity players in annual event

The alumi team plays the USIU rugby side during the traditional rugby derby in 2013 Summer Semester. sTEPhEN mUkhONGI

BY mIChAEL mANYIBE

United States International Uni-versity (USIU) is set to introduce co-curricular transcripts, in a deliberate attempt to compel students to participate actively in clubs and sporting activities.

This was disclosed during the Post Leadership Retreat workshop held on July 12 at the university’s auditorium where student leaders, compris-ing clubs, sporting teams and Student Affairs Council (SAC) reflected upon what they had learnt in an earlier retreat at Lake Elementaita.

During the workshop also attended by Deans of students Robert Onsarigo and Ronald Kimani, Rita Asunda, Student Affairs Deputy Vice Chancellor, said that the administration would be guided by student leaders’ proposals to formu-late criteria to assess students’ participation in sports and clubs before issuing them with cer-tificates.

“We could have drafted the criteria to be followed to issue the (co-curricular) transcripts, but we want it to start from you (student leaders). We want you to get involved,” said Asunda.

The student governing body, SAC proposed specific criteria to be used in gauging students’ performance in co-curricular activities. If SAC proposals are adopted by the administra-tion fully, only students with 75 per cent attendance in co-curricular activities will qualify to be awarded a certificate. An individual will be eligible to be awarded with a certificate if he or she has been a member of the club for one whole academic year. However, one may be eli-gible to get a certificate depend-ing on the evaluation done by the patron and officials of the club or sports team.

If 75 per cent of them agree that he/she deserves the certifi-cate depending on the level of commitment and participation he/she has shown during the ac-

ademic year in various activities, then he/she will be issued with a certificate. In addition, to be able to determine whether an indi-vidual is eligible to be awarded with a certificate, one will be expected to have taken part in 75 per cent of the club or team activities. Most importantly, a member of a club or sports team will be awarded a certificate if he or she contributes in one way or another to the growth of the club or team in terms of membership such as by creating awareness during an academic year.

During the workshop, stu-dent leaders discussed the role of students in the university’s governance and administrative structures.

The presentations also fo-cused on developing action plans to help student leaders achieve their objectives and effectively manage their roles.

The student leaders reviewed and recommended improve-ments to the patrons’ evalua-tion tool.

USIU chase enthusiasts play the board game during their free time at the university last Summer Semester. sTEPhEN mUkhONGI

University’s cricket team in action last semester. sTEPhEN mUkhONGI

Sports PictorialUniversity set to assess co-curricular activities

Gazette Summer 2013

BY mIChAEL mANYIBE

USIU ladies basketball, The Flames shone in Zone V championship coming second place in the region, only being beaten by their bitter Kenyan rivals Eagle Wings, who won 67-62.

The Martial Eagles basketball team and ladies team’s represented in the 2013 FIBA Africa Zone 5 club championships in Bujumbura - Burundi, from August 5 to 10 August 2013.

The teams were placed second in the Kenya Basket-ball Federation League last year that enabled them to qualify for the FIBA Africa Zone 5 club Championships this year to represent Kenya.

They were awarded the first runners-up trophy with Emma Nyakemba getting the top scorer trophy.

This the second time USIU Flames has done Kenya proud by representing the country in an international tournament after they did the same in 2007 in Ethiopia.

The Flames fought a ‘good fight’ to qualify to the finals, especially the games between them and host Burundi and one against Uganda. They won both games and qualified to the semifinal where they thrashed the 2nd team of Burundi 70 points to 26. They played the Eagle wings of Kenya in the final, where they lost 67 to 61 points.

“The history of USIU Basketball teams in Kenya and

GAZETTE SPORTS

USIU’s Flames make history in Burundi games

University team wins accolades in recent regional basketball championships

RUGBY Wazee versus vijana derby

<<

CURRICULUMUSIU set to assess activities outside lecturer halls

<<INSIDE

Page 16

USIU basketballer Hilda Indasi in ac-tion during a past game.mIChEZOAfRIkA.COm

the region may be very hard for any Univer-sity in the region to breakOur teams being University teams got lots of praise from the region (Zone V) that is composed of the following countries; Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania,” Boniface Salano, sports coordinator.

The men also showed their skill in the game, but were beaten by only a half a basket to host Burundi in their first game, ending with 60-61. Their second game was against the defending champions Rwanda,

who tied 58-58, but lost in extra time 58 to 62. The host Burundi lifted the men’s title.

In an email to students, staff and faculty the sports coordinator congratulated the teams saying they did well in positively representing the institution. He also added that it was not easy especially for a uni-versity team to play against the best clubs in the region.

“Thumbs up for our basketball teams,” said Ritah Asunda, the Deputy Vice Chan-cellor Student Affairs & Enrollment Man-agement, while congratulating the coaches of the teams, patrons and other stakehold-ers.

Eagle Wings’ Star Silalei Shani Owuor was on Saturday named the most valu-able player during the just concluded regional Zone 5 basketball competition held in Burundi.

The tournament ,that came to a close on Saturday, saw Silalei’s team Eagle Wings successfully defend their title with a 67-62 finals win over close rivals USIU Flames also from Kenya.

The women’s most valuable award was won by another Kenyan — Hilda

Indasi during last year’s edition held in Kampala.

USIU’s Emma Nyakweba was the highest best scorer in the women’s

category while Aristide Mugabe of Rwanda’s Espoir BBC was the best scorer for men.

The most valuable players were Eagle Wings’ Silalei Shani

of Kenya and Landry Ndikumana of Urunani in Burundi.

Inter-murals event out to promote sports

The Sports Activities Commit-tee together with the Sports Officials’ Committee initiated a sporting event dubbed Intra-murals in the Summer 2013 se-mester which comprised volley-ball, softball and tae-kwon-do.Intra-murals sporting events are aimed at promoting exist-

ing sporting activities at United States International University. They also provide a platform for introducing new activities within USIU, as well as allow different people who may or may not normally play sports to get a chance to play together in a fun environment.

HIGHLIGHTS

USIU teams take part in cancer driveUSIU’s Martial Eagles thrashed Footprints 30 to 19 during the the Africa Cancer Foundation tournament final. The tournament, which marked the second anniversary of the foundation was held at Nairobi Railways Club on Saturday July 20. This event aimed aimed at bringing together people from all walks of life, and to create awareness on practical ways to prevent cancer, keeping fit being one of them.USIU basketball teams won all the matches

Basketballers dunk on at Zuku, KBL tournaments

USIU’s Spartans at the Nabungolo event in June.

they played in the Zuku University Basketball League (ZUBL) held between May 18 and May 19. The men team beat Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology 81-54 while the ladies thrashed University of Nairobi 80-30. On May 19, the teams beat Blazers and Mennonities 96-76 and 71-10 in the Kenya Basketball League respectively. Institu-tions that win the tournament will be awarded cash prizes to the develop the game.

WAfULA WANYAmA