Most college students, for valid reasons (well, sometimes), are not known for putting their energies out there at the service of humanity, but Jacinta Nyambura is not most students. At 22 she is running a charity organisation called Smile Warriors Foundation (SWF) with a membership of at least 300 people.
“The idea came out of my nature of giving, I like to put a smile on people’s faces, you know,” she tells me. I met Jacie in 2020, in a media law class. She was wearing an easy smile and a black dress.
As Shakespeare would put it, I broke the ice. Not for those reasons you guys are thinking of: I sought her help with the assignment.
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See, I was expected to read and analyze layered court cases that happened in the 18th century that had no business to do with how the world works, for example.
Anyway, we are at some café in Ong’ata Rongai on a hot Saturday afternoon. I scuffle for a notebook in my backpack. I cannot find my pen, so I decide to have it cool. No need for many notes.
This is someone I know. Plus, we are only the two of us. There’s no point of playing to the gallery.
“So, what do you want to know about me?” she asks gingerly as she sips her juice. I’m kind of ambushed by that question because I am really not sure what I want to know about her.
“Ok, I want to know about your organisation,” I chime in. “Great. SWF is not about me. It is about a lot of people who go out of their way every day for the love of humanity,” she answers.
“I grew up seeing my dad helping the less privileged in our neighborhood, I picked that up, and yes, here we’re,” She continues.
I make a few mental notes and ask if the organisation has longtime plans apart from charity work. “We are planning to start a vocational training center in the near future to elevate literacy levels among our people,” she says.
There is a brief silence after her response. She stares briefly at the ceiling, and I am tempted to imagine just how hard she is thinking about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the hunger and stuff.
I ask her about some of the challenges the organisation faces, and she mentions the bureaucracy that surrounds the process of acquiring a certificate and lack of enough resources as the main ones.
“We don’t have reliable sponsors as yet. What we work with comes from members’ contributions and friends of the organisation,” she offers. Since its inception in 2019, SWF has reached out to more than 3,000 people.
I will not blackmail you here with scriptures from the good book like those suspicious city pastors on Moi Avenue or promise you that God will do something about your bank account, and that kind of thing.
But if you have something small, head to their website and make a donation. Just go and do it because it is the right thing to do.
