Case studies: former SOS child Mobassa, Kenya

Sam Mbugua, brought up in the SOS Children's Village Mombasa, seems to have developed a master plan for his life's work in the humanitarian and development field - and so far, so good!

Planning for Life

Sam was born in Kenya, the last-born in a family of five children, but his parents died when he was just three years old. Sam's eldest sister, Wanjiku, who was only 16, shouldered the burden of taking care of her siblings as best she could. But she was uneducated and unemployed and she soon became overwhelmed by the task of looking after four younger children. After visits from concerned social workers Wanjiku decided that it was in the children's best interests if they were placed under the care of SOS Children's Villages.

Sam grew up in the SOS Children's Village Mombasa, in the same family house as one of his natural siblings, Nancy. He has fond memories of growing up in the 'family setting' that is typical of an SOS Children's Village. "Growing up with brothers, sisters and a mother was really important for me", he said, "not least because it 'normalised' us in the eyes of friends and peers at school and the community at large." He also learnt important values and principles such as respect for others, a need for compromise and sacrifice, and a work ethic that would "serve me well in my adult life".

Sam clearly has great respect and affection for his SOS mother, who was instrumental, he says, in ensuring that the family grew up with a "moral compass pointing in the right direction". "She was often very quick to point out when we took the wrong turn", he added "and she would sit us down (sometimes for hours on end) to lecture us on a variety of issues - with the age-old struggle between good and evil being the central theme."

Making the impossible possible through education

As a little boy Sam attended the SOS Nursery School, which was then located in the centre of the village, and went on to a local school (the SOS School Mombasa was not yet constructed) before being sent to a boarding school in western Kenya - the home district of his SOS mother. According to Sam his SOS mother "was extremely particular about education, and its power to make the impossible possible." He remembers that she would often point out to the children that their 'journey' in 'SOS' would not last forever and that sooner or later they would be required to take a bold step into the outside world. She would insist that only those that had taken education seriously would find life outside the 'SOS community' bearable or interesting. Sam maintains that, with hindsight, it is easy to see how right she was: "If I have embraced this philosophy that places education and self-betterment before everything else, it is due largely to the strong push I received from an early age from my SOS mum who had faith and confidence in my abilities and did everything to make sure that I had the opportunities to realise these potentials."

Sam excelled in academic subjects at school and in 1993 he left Kenya for the SOS International College in Ghana, which had a significant influence on his life. Meeting students from all over Africa, Sam learnt to mix with other nationalities. While he studied hard for his International Baccalaureate he was constantly aware of the message that emanated from the college principal: "If you do well here, you could do very well outside."

Sam did do well; well enough to gain admittance to Sheffield University in England, where he studied international politics and French. Always politically aware, Sam enjoyed making the links between everyday issues, such as street children and poverty, to the political forces at work on a larger scale.

The UN beckons

From an early age Sam had wanted to work in the diplomatic field, and on finishing his degree he applied for an internship to the United Nations. Successful in his quest, Sam spent four months in Geneva at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This was an important time for Sam, becoming sensitised to the issues of human rights, and seeing a direct correlation between a respect for human rights and socio/economic systems in individual countries. Sam was also able to use the time in Geneva to get a feel for how the United Nations works at ground level - important for his future career.

Next stop in Sam's career plan was the United Nations headquarters in New York, where he worked for three months as an intern in the Department of Political Affairs, assisting with ongoing work in the field of conflict prevention and post-conflict peace building. Sam's involvement with the preparation of the Secretary General's report on prevention of violent conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa sharpened his appreciation of the conflict-development nexus. "Peace and stability", he maintains, "are a sine qua non for development and prosperity in Africa".

Following that stint in New York Sam moved further north, to Ottawa in Canada, where thanks to a generous scholarship from SOS-Kinderdorf International, he was able to pursue and successfully complete an MA degree in political science, focusing on international development. After completing his studies, Sam's priority was to identify professional opportunities that would enable him to work in the development field. For a short time Sam joined the SOS Children's Villages East Africa Graduate Internship Programme in Nairobi, but when the chance of a junior professional consultancy came up with the UNHCR in Geneva he felt that this was the direction he really wanted to take. "The opportunity", he says, "was an important way of being a part of efforts to respond to the needs of one of the most dispossessed and vulnerable groups of people in the world - refugees. It was also", he added, "a strategic step in getting me ever closer to my ultimate goal of serving professionally with the United Nations system".

Becoming a global leader

After Geneva Sam moved back to Africa, this time to Chad in central Africa where he worked as a United Nations Volunteer (UNV) with UNHCR. UNVs are skilled and qualified professionals, with diverse career backgrounds, who work as volunteers with numerous UN agencies and play a crucial role in advancing the overall mandate of the United Nations. Sam used this time, as always, to learn and to prepare himself for what is the biggest step of his career so far - the World Economic Forum in Geneva, where he was taken on as a Global Leadership Fellow. According to the World Economic Forum website he is one of a small group of exceptionally talented individuals recruited to a three years masters programme in global leadership. The programme, the website says, is "an intensive work and learning experience intended to develop and train future leaders of global enterprises and international organisations."

Sam is well aware that not all are as fortunate as he is. It is important, he says, for the children at SOS Children's Villages to recognise, early on, the opportunities presented to them, and not to waste them. From his own tragic beginnings, Sam has shown that with the love, nurturing and security provided by his "SOS family", combined with a good education, a positive attitude and a desire to make the most of all opportunities, he can do anything he wants, if he really wants to do it. And he does.

SOS Children has been working in Kenya since 1975 and through four unique SOS Children's Villages cares for over 400 children. A further 7,500 are cared for through community projects such as SOS Family Strengthening Programmes and SOS Schools.

You can support children like Sam by sponsoring a child in Kenya today.