Chege Ngugi: From 'fatherless' to father of thousands

Chege Ngugi has trodden the long road. Consider this; orphaned as a child, missing his A-levels and joining a polytechnic, after a stint at General Motors as a management trainee, which he walked away from, afterwards a TSC teacher in a girls’ school in Turkana…walked away from that one too.

Then an accounts teacher at the Commercial College in Ruiru. Then somehow came an opening at Kenya Women Finance Trust, which opened the door that led him to his successful career working with the vulnerable, starting at Plan International, CARE (in Maputo, then Kenya as a director where he created Bimas, an independent microfinance from a micro-credit project), Food For The Hungry (director, Uganda) and finally ChildFund International in 2011 as Country Director in Mozambique (brains behind Banco Oportunidade, a microfinance bank), working his way to his current position as African Regional Director overseeing nine countries.

“Everything I have accomplished caring for the needy and vulnerable in society,” he said, “has been greatly influenced by my background.”

You look good for 57. It must be the genes. Is your dad slim like you?

My dad is gone. I can’t even remember what he looked like. He died when I was about 10 years old, too young to fully contemplate what having a father was. Then my mother followed when I was 15 or thereabout, I was completing secondary school. 

That must have been traumatic.

Well, my father’s death, not so much because I was too young. However, my mother’s death was very traumatic. She was sick for a while. She had stomach ulcers. She had left home to join the Akorino sect in Naivasha.

The sect didn’t believe in going to the hospital, so her sickness ate into her until it was too late. We were living in Molo when I got a message that she was very sick and rushed to be with her.

I remember a friend offered me a lift to Nakuru then I hopped into a matatu to Naivasha. When I arrived, it was too late; she lay there, frail and unable to speak or recognise me. I sat next to her and watched as she died.

That's horrible!

Yes. It was. And so we were all left orphaned, the eight of us. We were seven boys and one girl. The girl was the firstborn. I’m a middle child.

How did you come out of that desperate situation and end up here?

Luckily, I was an intelligent student. I always led my class, always number one. Consequently, I had a good relationship with my teachers; they would delegate me to look after the class.

I remember that I was a Headboy from Standard Four to Seven. In fact, some students thought I was a teacher. [Chuckles] I didn’t have good friends with my age mates because of that. I drew close to young teachers who had just graduated from college.

They’d often leave me to look after their houses when they were off for a holiday. Those teachers greatly influenced me; they shaped how I looked at the future. I mean, these were young men, some of whom came from Dondori in Nakuru…know where that is?

No, where’s that?

[Chuckles] It's a settlement in Nyandarua. There was a notion then that people from Dondori were so backward they drank tea by placing cups in their gumboots.

Dondori is a very cold and remote place. So seeing a teacher from Dondori, I would wonder, "How is someone from Dondori teaching us English?" [Chuckles].

I'd reason, "If this guy is from Dondori and he's a teacher, then what excuse do I have not to prosper?" I passed my exams in 1984 but couldn't proceed with my A-levels because of a lack of funds.

My uncle, who was then working for the City Council, called me to Nairobi and enrolled me in the Kenya Polytechnic, where I studied business administration. I worked a bit after that, mainly as a teacher, which I hated and kept quitting - to his chagrin.

I just wanted more for myself. I then went to university, worked in Namibia, and finally did my MBA at the United States International University Africa. My life would have gone down the drain if it were not for my uncle.

How do you think being orphaned so early in life impacted your life?

My father was a clerical officer in the Forestry department, so we were doing well compared to other families. But then he died, leaving us under the care of my mother, who was a stay-at-home mother. Imagine trying to support an army of eight children!

My sister had to drop out of school and take over as our ‘second mother’ to ensure we went to school. It wasn’t easy because we were looked down upon and ostracized even by neighbours for being ‘those children without a father’, and because my mother belonged to a sect.

The effect is two-sided; it can dampen your emotions entirely and sidetrack you. Or it can give you strength to conquer, to want to prove yourself. The latter was the jet fuel that drove me.

Did your mother’s religion have any effect on you and your siblings?

[Pause] My mother was a disciplinarian. Bringing up all those boys alone as a woman is not easy. Two of my brothers joined the Akorino sect and were made to wear turbans because they were young. The rest of us refused.

Her religion made it tough for us because we were already stigmatised as fatherless children. On top of this, we were poor. We had neighbours who had cows while we didn’t. Their houses were tin-roofed while ours was grass-thatched. Now add Mukorino on top of all that mess.

We had a religious mark on us. Whenever we went to [mainstream] church, we would be looked at weird. Inevitably, you lose your true identity because you have been assigned all these labels.

We stopped going to church at some point. When my mom died, my brothers removed the turban and shaved their hair which had grown long. I recall washing their hair and lice falling off them.

How are they doing, those two brothers of yours?

They're doing quite well, actually. The youngest worked at Equity Bank after university, and now he's a successful businessman, doing much better than any of us.

You have two adult daughters, how do you think growing up as an orphan, under those circumstances, impacted on how you parented your children?

That's a good question. [Pause] Sometimes I say that if I only had a father, perhaps I would have done much better than I have. [Reflectively] A father has an extraordinary impact on a child.

When you grow up lacking a father's guidance and love, as I did, you want to make up for that when you get your own children. With my girls, I was very intentional in ensuring they got everything I didn't get from my father.

You also become overprotective, overgiving, and overfriendly. And that's an issue. My last-born daughter went to the US to study when she was young.

Even now, I find that even though I would like her to fend for herself, to pay for certain things, like buying a car or paying for her Master's degree, I still pay for some. This is because I don't want her to lack as I did…why should she when she has a father?

When she says, "Daddy, Tennessee is so cold, I need a car, and I don't have enough money," should I say, "No, you are an adult, find money and pay for it yourself," and let her freeze? No! I can't bear to see my children suffer while I'm still alive.

Your dad was called Chege; you are Ngugi. How does it feel to use the name of a man you barely knew?

Children can be cruel. Growing up, they'd ask, "Who is this Chege you call yourself? We never see him!" I had neighbours who would keep saying, "My daddy this, my daddy that," and I had no daddy to refer to.

All I had was his name, so you cling to a name because that's all you have that offers some comfort.

Isn’t it just fascinating that perhaps your childhood prepared you to work with children?

I think so! When I look at my trajectory…my first employer was at Kenya Women Finance Trust (KWFT), whose business is to help women in business. To provide for us, my mother would do small businesses.

I was at KWFT for six years because I loved it, and I was passionate about the plight of those women who could have been my mother.

I then joined Plan International, an organisation with child sponsorship, and since then, I've never left child sponsorship organisations. The focus of my career has been children. I understand the disadvantage of circumstance.

What have you learned about children all these years working with them?

We work with about 161,000 children across Africa under ChildFund International. I have learned that every child has potential; all they need is hand-holding.

On the flip side, they can easily get lost. It's a very slippery road for these children. I have also learned that every child has a dream. They all dream, and anybody who dreams has a future.

When you stop dreaming, you lose focus on where you are going.

What keeps your grounded now?

I have had three pillars in my life. One is my mother, second is my sister. Both of them have passed on, unfortunately.

The third one is my wife who has been very instrumental the last couple of years building our life together and she has continued to support me - she makes me feel whole and complete.

Do you have a dream now at 57?

I’ve had a good career. I will retire, but I want to keep giving back to the community. I plan to retire to a farm but still be engaged with society philanthropically to give of myself to others.

I don’t want to sit on a verandah, staring at a hill, doing nothing. I don’t like the isolation of retirement.

Your biggest fear as a 57-year-old man.

That when I retire, I won't be able to manage myself well. Will I be able to maintain a healthy and decent life? I don't want to depend on anybody in my old age because I'm used to my independence. I don't ever want to wait to die.

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