Weun weun weun when
Center started 5 yas ago, I have personally attended 400 funells.
For people who have died because of jiggers.
Everyday someone dies because they can't because of jiggers.
They have been eaten, they can move, they die.
There are so many myths about jiggers.
People don't come out to talk about it.
The first 3 years when I began, it was about fighting.
kilosun.
Ya mountain school I went to.
They chased me away.
They said they don't want to ever seeing me in the village.
My parents were given warnings that their son is embalancing in the village.
The churches that I have all been doing all that helped build, helped do the Christmas
parties, they stopped.
They could even actually literally lock the doors when they see me because they thought
nge rising shame to the community.
The provincial administration have been locked in Poll Krystians many times when I am going to talk about it.
The Minister of Public Health came out strongly
saying that these people that we are showing with jigas
many people on the streets.
The person who really really helped me was the media
and the media followed me wherever I was going
until now the President recognized our work,
That's what now brought the breakthrough to our campaign.
Today I can tell you we have more than 300,000 people who have fully recovered and now are back to their normal lives.
The children have gone back to school.
The adults we have started agricultural and livestock farming.
Jigas is a result of poverty.
When these people are poor, they are not able to afford simple sanitation and medical materials.
Like you see they don't have shoes, they don't have soap.
They can afford a simple pin even to remove one jiga.
That's why you see most of them have so many jigas in their bodies.
Most of the children are not able to go to school because they cannot work.
Those who can work to school, they are not able to concentrate because jigas are very painful.
And then they have the other school communities laughing at them.
You were talking earlier about how crucial education is and because you're looking at the root cause here of what's going on.
You were allowing this opportunity for education and for community to come back together.
There's no peace if we don't have good health.
There's no peace if we don't have education.
When these people are not able to go to school, what happens is that at some point they'll be free from jigas.
But they have already outgrown their age to go to primary school.
So they will not join primary school.
What they will do, they will get involved in child labour.
Because these are people who are very desperate for any kind of income.
It doesn't matter whether the income is to damage or to kill.
What they are looking for, they are looking for money.
We have a lot of people who have been disabled because of the same problem.
Tomorrow I'm launching one of the biggest civic education in Kenya.
Telling people on how the people with jigas and who are disabled are able to vote.
Because here you must put a thumbprint.
If you look at those toes and hands, they can't put a thumbprint.
They can't do that.
Leave alone walking from their homes to go and vote.
So without them voting, the margins in the elections are so small
that people have to fight and have to kill each other.
If we eradicate jigas, these people will become and vote.
And by voting, first of all, they will enjoy their civic rights.
And two, will avoid any kind of conflict.
