By Murithi Kinoti
At times teachers are associated with negativity upon retirement and some of them turn to be laughing stock in the villages especially if they didn’t invest in income- generating projects while they were in service.
Within a very short duration of time upon retirement some of them appear to be shadows of former-selves. They are often seen in illicit brew dens taking illicit brews where they are ridiculed by local rural folks.
But this is not the case with Kambakia Men Retired Teachers Self Help Group, a group of ten retired teachers from Kambakia village in North Imenti, Meru County, who retired as from 2005 at official age of 55 year, while others retired in 2008.
The 10 Kambakia village retired teachers have started several income-generating projects among them poultry keeping as well as dairy farming after one of them brought the rest together and sold his idea to them.
Mr. Koome Ikunyua, the chairman of the group says that he realized a good number of them had retired and since they were from the same village they could pull their resources together and come up with income-generating projects to keep them busy as well as earn cash.
“It’s assumed when teachers retire it’s the end of their active life since they don’t deal with pupils again and they are taken as failures in life which paints a very negative picture of once vibrant community members. The ten of us decided to be active upon our retirement so that we don’t paint a picture of negativity associated with retired teachers in our communities.
We say we are retired but not tired as we’ve turned to income-generating activities among them poultry keeping and dairy farming. Our chicken’s eggs are bought collectively by Bradegate Poultry Industries in Nyeri, where we went to learn about poultry keeping”, said Ikunyua.
They farm chicken popularly known as Kienyeji chicken and their eggs and meat has big markets. Since this project is established and doing well, next they are targeting dairy farming and have already started individually.
The group’s treasurer Festus Kaburu said they meet once a month and contribute Sh1,000 each totaling to ten thousand whereby they save two thousand and give four thousand to two individuals each in a merry go round rotation.
They too give members short term loans of Sh5,000 payable in two months at an interest rate of 5 per cent.
To be more active, the group while accompanied by their spouses take recreational trips to some parts of Kenya for sightseeing and relaxing.
Last December, they visited Lake Bogoria in the famous Kenyan Rift Valley region.
