‘Miracle worker’ behind Turkana’s reservoir

By JOE OMBUOR.

KENYA: The news that a massive water reservoir had been discovered at Lotikipi in the arid Turkana County caught a nation’s attention like few things have. The aquifer located courtesy of Unesco was dubbed ‘the biggest in Kenya’s history’, with the potential to grow our water reserves by ten per cent for the next 70 years, at an abstraction rate of 1.2 billion cubic metres annually.

What was not announced was the force behind the great discovery; a Kenyan woman with an iron resolve. Dr Mary Mbari Khimulu, Kenya’s ambassador/permanent delegate to Unesco at the time, campaigned to have Kenya included in a water-mapping project to be carried out by the UN body in conjunction with Japan.

Workaholic

She says: “The mapping and subsequent drilling of wells initially targeted Ethiopia and Somalia only.  Since our president was scheduled to attend a Unesco meeting in Paris and pay a courtesy call on the director general, I asked her how such a big man from Kenya would visit and go back home empty-handed when such a project was in the offing.

“Prime Minister Raila Odinga represented the President and, to our delight, Kenya was included in the mapping and drilling project. Our campaign had borne the desired fruit.

“To cap it all, Kenya was granted a Unesco Category Two status to host an institution specialising in ground water, where training in ground water matters will be done for the region. It will operate under the Kenya Water Institute.”

Khimulu says her office lobbied for Kenya to be voted the sub-regional office of Unesco for Eastern Africa during the ongoing restructuring.  It was also through her efforts that World Heritage Sites in Kenya increased from the original three — Lamu Island Old Town, Mount Kenya and Lake Turkana National Park — to seven.

An achiever by any description, Khimulu was Kenya’s first full-fledged ambassador to Unesco. Prior to that, she served as the deputy director (the equivalent of vice chancellor) at the United States International University (USIU); at World Vision Kenya as the director of national resource development; and at Windle Trust Kenya as executive director. Before all this, she had worked as a high school teacher.

A workaholic who believes that women can do as well as men on a level playing field, Khimulu was chief commissioner of the Kenya Girl Guides Association at the same time her father, former Cabinet Minister Jeremiah Nyagah, was chief commissioner of the Kenya Scouts Association.

“From early in life, I decided I would be a successful teacher like my father, and excel in the scout movement.”

Long before she was identified to set up the Kenya delegation at Unesco in Paris, Khimulu had a few other firsts to her credit. She was the first woman teacher at Kangaru School, Embu, where her students included Parliament’s Speaker Justin Muturi.

“I was also the first woman to be elected chairman of the board of the Bible Society of Kenya, and the first deputy director of USIU.”

It was courtesy of Khimulu that USIU secured its campus at Kasarani in Nairobi. She recalls: “I was deputy vice-chancellor when the Government came up with a policy necessitating all foreign universities to, among other requirements, have at least 20 acres of land registered locally. My closeness to my father came in handy when I sought his help and he agreed to sell his land at Kasarani to the university at a throwaway price.”

With USIU well established and running at Kasarani, Khimulu, who is a firm believer in setting up systems and marching on, moved to World Vision Kenya, where, as director, she set up the National Resource Development Division that raises funds locally to assist needy children.

“I was among the directors who moved World Vision to its Karen offices from the city centre,” she says.

At the Windle Charitable Trust, her tenure as executive director left indelible imprints, such as a teacher training college in Kakuma, where the agency, in cooperation with the Kenyan Government, trains Sudanese refugees.

“The Trust catered for refugees at Kakuma and Dadaab, teaching them English to facilitate communication, with the Kenyan authorities and internationally. When girls and women had the ability to speak for themselves, the authorities didn’t have to rely on men, some of whom deliberately falsified information to deny women openings.”

The second born in the Nyagah family, Khimulu had her early education at Embu Girls Primary School, where she sat her Kenya Preliminary Examination exams.

She reminisces: “I scored A-A-B and was admitted to Precious Blood Secondary School, Kilungu, but my father would not hear of it. He believed in Alliance Girls’ High School so much that he asked me to repeat the class, which I did at Kyeni Girls’ Primary School. I was an Alliance student the following year, to the delight of my father.

“Among my classmates at Alliance was Dr Sally Kosgey, who was my deskmate.”

Associate

Dr Khimulu is a governing board member of the Institute for Africa and International Understanding, a Unesco Category Two institute in Nigeria based at Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, and a member of the board of trustees of the African World Heritage Fund based in Pretoria, South Africa, representing Eastern Africa member states. She is also a global honorary associate member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

Married to the late Paskal Khimulu, she is the proud mother of Mutheu, a lawyer Eunice, a marketer, and the late Frank, a pilot. She is grandmother to two boys.