School hits nationals with a cake for diabetes patients

Friends Malava girls high school will be going to the science and engineering fair in Embu to represent their banana cake exhibition at the nationals after competing successfully from the sub county level.

The school principal Rose Abuko, while confirming their participation lauded the girls innovative efforts and assured them that the school will continue to support STEM related courses.

She lauded the efforts stakeholders had injected in ensuring that the girls had all the needed materials to exhibit their works.

“As a school we are proud of our girls and we will continue to support and encourage our girls interested in venturing in mathematics and science fields as they were courses that if well pursued it could transform a society,” Abuko said.

She further said STEM education and innovations drive technological advancement in the country and help spur economic growth through creation of job opportunities and fostering of entrepreneurship.

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The innovators Lilian Nyanjira and Anne Barusi came up with the idea of baking a sweet banana cake for the sugar patients who can enjoy having the cake that is sugar flavored but with no health hazards to them.

They said they came up with the idea after realizing that most diabetes patients craved for sugary foods but could not consume foods with artificial sugar as it could trigger their sugar levels to a high and endanger their lives.

“This cake is ideal for them as they can snack it away without worrying about their sugar levels rising and we intend our innovation to be fully implemented as a snack for sugar patients.” they hoped.

Their teacher Nathan Musiomi, said his students were ready to present their innovations at the nationals and hoped that they will emerge among the top three and represent the country in the finals in South Africa

“We are ready for the nationals and we hope that we will emerge winners and we also want to realize our innovation to be picked upon by confectionery companies to start baking these types of cakes to sugar patients,” he said

The science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) he noted was important as it involved the coming up of new workable ideas that can change the livelihood of the people.

He further called on the ministry of education to confirm mathematics as a compulsory subject to enable more students use it in innovations.

“We have seen how important Mathematics is in our exhibitions and CBC should not make our students irrelevant by optioning Mathematics as an alternative subject as it will resonate negatively in the lives of the future learners who will leave school to join the outside World,” he added.

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The school head encouraged the young innovators to build on the experience to develop better innovations that will be successful.

“As you try to solve global problems, please note that there is no failure in this field of innovations and what you acquire is experience that you will leverage to do even better, so remember that everyone who takes part in this competition is already a winner”, she added.

As the country struggles with treating 2.3 million diabetes cases in the recent years, the number is projected to rise to 3.5 million come 2045 raising concerns among the health practitioners.

This is according to the international diabetes federation (IDF) that has warned Kenyans against unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, and uncontrolled eating habits (obesity) as some of the major causes of the disease that eventually leads to blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, strokes and lower limbs amputations when not detected and managed well.

With the country current diabetes prevalence being estimated at 4.5% this year, there still is a significant number of cases that remain undiagnosed.

Diabetes patients are subjected to special diets that consist mostly of sugar free foods.

BY WAKHUNGU ANDANJE