IMPACT NOVEMBER 2015
Mother and son share an embrace.
SOLIDARITY
FAMILY RECOUNTS TERROR ATTACK Editor’s note: The names of the sponsored student and mother in this story were changed for their protection.
Families served by Unbound in areas around the world live with the threat of violence stemming from crime, armed conflict and terrorism. Unbound strives to be a peaceful presence in communities by bringing people from diverse backgrounds and faiths together in a spirit of mutual respect and support. When families are affected by violence, the Unbound community stands with them as a force for love and good. In Kenya last April, one sponsored student’s life was changed by violence. The 20-year-old student was at Garissa University College in northern Kenya when gunmen attacked the
school, killing 147 people, most of them students. The militant group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility. The young man and his mother shared their story with Unbound.
A traumatic phone call “My husband wakes up very early to go to work,” the mother, Anna, said. “The 2nd of April was no exception. We woke up and, as usual, we took a moment to pray and read the Bible together. “As we were praying, our son Joseph rung [my husband’s] phone, and from my husband’s expression, I could tell something was terribly wrong. “My husband told me that Garissa University was under attack by armed men. I was in shock. I woke up the rest
of the family and told them that we needed to kneel down and pray. “My husband was hysterical; I had to be strong for both of us. I kept saying out loud that God would not let my son perish. “After a while we could not reach him on his phone. His father was convinced that the worst had happened. However, somewhere in my heart, I had faith that my son would make it [out] alive. “After almost three hours of waiting, hoping and praying, he called us and told us that he had managed to escape with minor injuries. “I cannot put into words how I felt knowing that he was safe and sound. I remember just thanking God and singing.” Anna’s thoughts and prayers were with the families who lost loved ones that day. “I would watch the news on TV, (continued)
(continued from front) parents going to the morgue to look for their children, and I would break down in tears,” she said. “I could only imagine the pain they were feeling, every emotion they were going through. “I deeply empathized with them.”
Recalling the ordeal Joseph didn’t want to go to the university in Garissa because he wasn’t familiar with the school and it didn’t offer the course of study he wanted to pursue. But he had no other choice available to him. It was the public university the government assigned him to attend, and his family couldn’t afford the higher cost of a private school, even with support from sponsorship. “The fact that it was in northern Kenya, far away from home and in a place known for its insecurity, made it even worse,” Joseph said. He went so far as to hide his admission letter from his parents. Though worried about the security situation and their son being far from home, Joseph’s parents encouraged him to go anyway and do his best. Once there, Joseph settled in, made friends and began to enjoy his classes in computer science, the major he chose. Last December, just before exams, the administration sent students home after the school received threatening messages about a pending terror attack, Joseph said. Students returned to school in January to finish their exams and then went home until the start of the next semester in April. “The situation was rather tense because there were rumors about an attack, just like we had been told in December,” Joseph said. “We, however, went about our regular routine.” Joseph described what happened on the morning of April 2. “On this particular day at around 5:30 a.m., I woke up. I had slept at my friend’s hostel. So as I was going to my hostel to take a bath and prepare for classes, I heard gunshots. “I proceeded hurriedly to my room. This time I heard gunshots again, only this time they were getting louder. In a panic I called out for my roommates, three of them, and we started scampering for safety. I called up my parents to tell them we were under attack. “We wanted to climb over a fence that was near our hostel but the gunmen started firing at us and we ran away. They were using red flares to light up the compound since it was still dark. … We kept running, but the gunmen kept firing at us.”
Anna remembers the day her son called to tell the family his school was under attack.
It was then, Joseph said, that he saw one of his friends get shot. “At this point it hit me that this was real, this was really happening,” he said. “These men had come for our lives. We were running in a field of thorns barefooted, because we had no time to wear shoes as we were escaping. “Bullets were being fired at us mercilessly. We kept running. … We had to make it to the other side of the fence. The fence was made of barbed wire, with spiraled barbed wires at the top. The fence was about 8 feet high. “We started jumping over the fence one by one. I had to wait for my friend to jump over so that he could lend me his slippers because it was impossible to climb the barbed-wire fence barefooted. “We luckily made it over to the other side. We kept running till we got to the police post. At this time, most of us were bleeding from the hands, knees and feet. Running through the thorny field and climbing over the fence was not easy. “I called my parents to tell them we made it. I was alive.” Joseph lost friends that day while other friends made it out alive. “My parents encouraged me to talk to a counselor so I did,” he said. “I felt relieved. Though there are some things that cannot be forgotten.” Joseph and his family will continue to have the support of sponsorship and the local Unbound community as they go forward with their lives. Joseph attends a new school now and is adjusting well, “a day at a time,” he said.
UNBOUND’S SUPPORT FOR EDUCATION MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN KENYA According to national norms published in the Journal of Development Economics, only one out of 20 Kenyan students attends school beyond the secondary level. But an Unbound education survey shows that for our sponsored youth and scholarship recipients, it’s one out of five. Young adults who leave the Unbound program in Kenya have completed, on average, three more years of schooling than their peers. Please support education through Unbound. Visit unbound.org/education to donate today.
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