Man Went to University After Finding Prospectus in a Kenyan Slum

Meet Sammy Gitau, 35, who just graduated with a master’s degree from Manchester University. Sammy has a fascinating story: he was inspired to get an education when he ran across a brochure for the University in the garbage heap of a Kenyan slum!

Gitau’s life began to spiral out of control shortly after his father was murdered with a hammer in Mathare, one of the oldest and most squalid of Nairobi’s slums, where an estimated 300,000 people live crammed into makeshift huts.

As the eldest of 11 children, he was expected to become the breadwinner, but in his desperate struggle to make money he turned to gangs and drugs, dealing them and then taking them.

"The next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed, falling in and out of a coma, and I could hear the doctors and nurses talking about how I was going to die," he said, retelling the story as if he can’t quite believe how bad it once was.

"I thought that if I had to give an account of my life I would have nothing to show. I knew I had to change."

Link (Photo: Warren Smith)