Kenyan medical student Dominic Muriuki, 24, talks with Silver Creek High School principal Sherri Schumann Monday morning. For the past three years, Silver Creek’s Public Service for Africa club has partnered with the International Peace Initiative to support Muriuki with money for his tuition for medical school.
LONGMONT — About 20 students chattered excitedly outside Silver Creek High School on Monday morning.
Clutching brightly colored balloons, they unfurled a yellow banner that read, “Welcome Dominic!”
“There he is! There he is!” a student yelled as the group erupted into cheers.
For the first time, members of the school’s Peace and Service for Africa club met the 24-year-old Kenyan man they have supported for nearly four years.
Since 2007, the club has sponsored Dominic Muriuki, a student studying biomedical research with an emphasis in tropical and infectious diseases at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. The club partners with nonprofit International Peace Initiatives to pay part of Muriuki’s annual tuition.
Through grass-roots efforts — bake sales, coin drives, beaded jewelry sales and donations — PSA members have raised $5,000, history teacher and club sponsor Justelle Grandsaert said.
“To meet him is huge, but also to have these students who have been working so hard see that they’ve made a difference has been phenomenal,” Grandsaert said.
Muriuki said he traveled to Colorado “to thank (the club) and to tell them they have done a great job, not only supporting me financially, but uplifting my morale.”
Muriuki said he was “overwhelmed” at his welcome. He shook each student’s hand before heading inside for a Q-and-A with Grandsaert’s history class.
Muriuki talked to the class about Kenya’s education, which he said favors the rich. College students are role models, so the 3,000 people in his hometown, the eastern Kenya city of Meru, have high expectations, he said.
Muriuki also remarked that Silver Creek’s size — the school has more than 1,000 students — shocked him. His high school has about 400 students, he said.
“This is more like a college to me. I’ve never seen a high school like this,” he said. “I’m used to small classes and you share books.”
Muriuki is scheduled to graduate in September. He then plans to finish a two-year program on infectious diseases — the U.S. equivalent of a doctorate.
He planned to work as a medical doctor, but Muriuki said he now hopes to be a scientist or public health official and research treatments for widespread diseases like malaria.
Though Kenya has a health care system, “due to corruption and mismanagement, this doesn’t get to the community level,” he said.
“As I do my research, I want to combine it with policy development,” he said.
Abby Crisafulli, a 2008 Silver Creek graduate who started the club’s relationship with Muriuki, attended Monday’s welcome. In August 2009, she traveled to Kenya for two weeks to speak at IPI’s Women’s International Grassroots Peace Congress and visited Muriuki’s family.
The 21-year-old said she hopes Muriuki’s visit inspires local students to see how they can effect change.
“By helping this one person, it’s a massive ripple effect that goes through the whole community,” said Crisafulli, a junior music education major at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.
Muriuki arrived in Colorado on Wednesday night and will stay until the end of April, when he will fly to Burlington, Vt., for a monthlong internship at a medical office.
Among the items on his agenda are a Rockies game and visits to Estes Park, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and Red Rocks. He also will speak at an all-school assembly April 21.
PSA members have talked with Muriuki on the phone, and they email and message on Facebook. Last year, club members spoke at Blue Mountain Elementary, and students made cards to send to Kenya.
But senior Emily Oliver, 17, said meeting him makes the experience real.
“It’s pretty wild that he’s here,” she said.
VIDEO
Commentaires