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Nsemia Inc Publishers
Where are True Parents?
In Where are True Parents?, Augustine Rugutt explores ways in which parenting determines children’s behaviour and character beyond formative years. In doing so, he associates society’s changing value system, social pressures and use of technology with parenting outcomes, some of which are unpalatable in the eyes of society. He asks whether parents are truly aware of the impact of their conduct and action in shaping the future of their children.
A fundamental question is whether parents truly know their children. On the other hand, do children really understand their parents? Such understanding is essential for a sound foundation for society. He makes the irrefutable case that poorly parented children are likely to be poor parents themselves. He challenges parents to understand that parenting is a God-given responsibility. As such, parents owe it to the Maker and the future of society to play their role as parents guided by teachings from the Bible. Step by step advice, most of which is informed by his work with Church, is invaluable for today’s parent.
Mwangi’s Adventure
When Mwangi helped a distressed lady change a punctured car tyre one day, he thought it was just that. Little did he know that the token of appreciation that the lady gave him was a trigger that would set him off on an adventure of mixed fortunes. On one hand danger looms large and, on the other, he has to keep a job as an assistant to a young Irish researcher named Trevor. Trevor, as well, finds himself on a new path with the thugs pursuing Mwangi. How the two youths juggle between their research and safety, in and around Nyandarũa, is the thrill of this compelling narrative.
The Airlift Orphan
The seed from which this book germinated was the Tom Mboya/Kennedy airlifts which took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Dozens of young bright students from Kenya were given a chance to further their education in the United States of America. A Kenyan visionary, politician and trade unionist, Tom Joseph Mboya, had seen that an independent Kenya would need its own well educated citizens to steer the new nation as most of the colonial government workers were leaving.
Kendi, the chief persona in the story, is daughter of a man who left his pregnant lover behind and failed to come back. The travails that Kendi and her mother go through at the hands of a ruthless society is the real gist of this story.
The story is entirely fictional but is primarily based on a historical event which actually took place.
The Airlift Orphan is a moving tale of, betrayal, sorrow, love and ultimate redemption. Despite being based on historical happenings, the story is timeless and will entertain readers for generations to come.
Chasing Ethnic Shadows
This is a gripping political story featuring two tribes; the Bandalo and Waleki communities in the wake of a political turmoil in a young African country.
When Adena, a young woman who works her way through formal schooling and Munara, a police officer of high moral standing meet and fall in love, theirs is a thrilling love story. Amidst fights, lootings and violence, their worlds are fused into one.
From two opposing ethnic communities, a glaring age gap, an intimidating class difference; can love withstand the political tension? Can their story bridge the ethnic differences between their respective communities? Can it cure the country from chaos?
Beaten Odds: Footprints of uncertaint...
Stephen Mabea was born to newly converted Seventh Day Adventist (SDA parents as British missionaries made inroads into Western Kenya. With a life punctuated with challenges, Mabea's Christian upbringing, dedication to service and excellence saw him triumph at every turn.
One of the first teachers from his locality in pre-independent Kenya, he focused on shaping and moulding the lives of young people. Hard work and creativity saw each of his schools record stellar performance. Many of his students went on to pursue successful careers across the country and elsewhere in the world.
As a Staffing and Education Officer in Kisii and Siaya, he was central to implementing education programmes, improving teaching outcomes, streamlining teacher recruitment, and reforming the school equipment programme. Away from education, Mabea worked with fellow pyrethrum and tea farmers to get better returns for their sweat and toil.
Discipline and dedication to service have been key guiding principles in his work as a teacher, an education administrator and community leader. He professes that success through hard work, resilience, honesty and determination is its own reward. Doing what is right, at the right time and in the right way is most gratifying, he adds.
In retirement, Mabea spends time at his Borabu home farming, and serving the community and the church. They look up to him as a teacher, an advisor, mentor and a role model.
Vyama Institutions of Hope
This book makes the case for informal sector institutions in development theory. Through practical examples and interviews conducted in Kenya, the author captures how ordinary people organize themselves to meet daily economic and development challenges. The author traces how ordinary people (wananchi) use non-mainstream mechanisms in the form vyama (social groups) to enable individual, group and community development. The book offers insights into the evolution of vyama (institutions of hope) and the role these institutions continue to play in realizing economic growth: wealth creation and distribution; investments, social protection; and general community development.
The work shows how, despite historical disruptions, modernization and neo-liberal policies, ordinary people creatively borrow from tradition. In the process, they use collective mechanisms for resource mobilization, investment, risk-sharing and shared gains for the common good. The author offers pointers into the future and how the chama concept can become mainstream in a people’s economic development.
What others say
“The analysis is rigorous. It is highly original, emotive, and an excellent piece of work. It makes a major contribution to our knowledge of the proto-proletariat and the informal sector in the developing world. - How the author beautifully weaves anecdotes from classical African novels into her analysis to reinforce her argument makes this work distinctive and unique.” - Professor MBK Darkoh, University of Botswana
“This book is based on real life cases in an area that most scholars have not ventured into. It is a major addition of new findings in the body of knowledge. The presentation is clear, understandable and would appeal to most readers.” –Paul Kamau, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, University of Nairobi
“The strength of this book is the way it has managed to present the lives of the ordinary people as not hopeless, but rather the base where future development for Africa could be emerging. The book starts from the grassroots and the development actions and innovations taking place there based on the needs as experienced by the ordinary people, rather than the technical fixes of development experts that follow the books rather than the actual needs of the people being developed.” – Professor Beth Maina Ahlberg, PhD, Professor of International Health, Uppsala University
“This book demonstrates how ordinary citizens have discovered the power in tapping into social relations and are proactively solving their own socio-political and economic challenges. It calls for the incorporation of the ordinary citizen in development planning with a view of enabling them to receive value from and add value to the globalization and integration process. For anyone who is interested to see Africa play an important role in the global agenda, this is not a book to be ignored.” -- Josephat Juma, Managing Editor, The African Executive magazine.
Wanjiku in Global Development
In Kenya, the name 'Wanjiku' epitomizes the ordinary person, the citizen, in the context of national socio-political and socio-economic discourse. The origins of the name are in the often heated national debates on political, economic, and rights-related issues where elite self-interest often
takes precedence. Aligned with economic thinking from western schools of thought, the elite often acts without much attention to Wanjiku's daily challenges of survival or completely ignores her well-developed modes of survival as a demonstration of a sound system worth paying attention to.
In Wanjiku in Global Development: Everyday Ordinary Women Livelihood Economy in Kenya, Kinyanjui captures Wanjiku's systematic approach to day-to-day activities that undergirded participants' and society's common good. Call it the Wanjiku Business Model. In the true spirit of Ubuntu, market women (Wanjiku) operate within a set of unwritten rules that assure optimization of collective good from interacting among themselves and with others. The Wanjiku Business Model is well illustrated through a number of case studies that further capture its sound basis.
Kinyanjui presents a major lesson we can learn from Wanjiku, namely: life does not have to be about cutthroat competition, winners and losers!
Jahenda the Teenager Mother
Jahenda, the Teenage Mother is a coming-of-age story about Jahenda, the protagonist and a Form-two student at Chavavo Secondary school, who believes education is her key to success. Like most teenage girls, she vows not to be distracted by teenage love, but when Alan, a handsome and charming young man, shows interest in her, she is tamed by his charm and falls head over heels in love with him. Yielding to the temptations of love, Jahenda makes the biggest blunder in her life when she becomes pregnant and, as a result, is expelled from school, an outcome which derails her dreams for success. That is not all! She is shunned by most people in her rural community and must confront the stigma of having a child outside wedlock. To make matters worse, when Alan, the very young man responsible for her pregnancy, dies unexpectedly after a snake bite, this young mother finds herself at a crossroads in her life. What makes Jahenda’s story a compelling read, therefore, is her ability to harness her inner ambitions to emerge from her fix by doing the unthinkable and defying societal norms to save herself. What a cautionary tale! Will this teen mother’s last act be her saving grace?
Abagusii Wisdom Revisited: Proverbs i...
Abagusii Wisdom Revisited is a collection of proverbs and metaphors in Ekegusii, one of the forty one languages spoken in Kenya. It includes naming conventions in the calendar, the traditional homestead, cattle (which were a symbol of wealth in traditional Gusii society), currency and traditional brew. The book captures wisdom told over generations and observations intertwined with profound meaning.
In order to avail the work to a wider audience than Ekegusii readers and speakers, the author has attempted to put the necessary context, giving the English equivalent and, in some cases, using story-lines to establish the meaning. Here is an example:
Abanda 'mbairokaine; Onchong’a agatama ekworo Kimaiga kayebwate:
The rich revere/fear one another as in the case of Onchong’a who fled on noticing Kimaiga’s cloak.
Storyline: Once there were two rich men who unknowingly met at the home of a beautiful girl, whom they both intended to woo. Mr. Onchong’a reported earlier. However, when Mr. Kimaiga also arrived for the same purpose, Mr. Onchonga, who was less wealthy, stealthily walked away without ado.
Taboos of Abagusii of Kenya
Emegiro y’Abagusii ba Kenya (Taboos of Abagusii of Kenya) documents taboos of the Abagusii and the role the taboos played, and continue to play, in that society. Authors assert that the taboos regulated society in all dimensions. A person breaking a taboo would face censure and/or punishment unless s/he was cleansed.
Taboos have vital effect on a society’s conduct. They regulate relations and determine how the society utilizes its resources, among other things. They also protect society from dangerous persons such as criminals.
Taboos demand obedience and are associated with rituals; they impose specific or restrictive behaviour, usually directed at avoiding danger, be it imminent or long-term.
As captured in this book, taboos are social constitutions for, together with cultural laws, they regulate community conduct.
Some taboos documented here may not be relevant today. However, they capture the context and hence the society of the time. They are of historical significance, many threads of which exist today.
