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57-year-old Garissa man achieves lifetime dream after sitting KCSE exam

Aden Muhumed Omar at Young Muslim Secondary in Garissa County.

By Issa Hussein | Monday, January 8, 2024

Aden scored D+ during last year's KCSE exam at Young Muslim Secondary in Garissa County.

As the KCSE results were released, today, 57-year-old Aden Muhumed Omar celebrated achieving his long-awaited dream after scoring D+.

Aden sat for his Kenya Certificate Secondary Education (KCSE) exam last year at Young Muslim Secondary in Garissa County.

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Determination and resilience describe Aden Muhumed's journey from a cattle herder, and hawker to a student with a burning dream to pursue further studies.

Brought up in a pastoralist family, since childhood, he grew up herding cattle in Fafi constituency in Garissa town and Bura Dima and Garseni in Tana River county.

Aden says he never got a chance to join school at a young age since they were moving with their livestock transversing between the two counties in such for water and pasture.

“Every year a cycle of drought came to kill our cattle that kept on reducing in number, from a herd of almost 400 we remained with none during my youthful age and life became difficult," said Aden.

At the age of 24, he was employed to herd cattle belonging to a relative and he got two heifers for his two years of hard work.

Unfortunately, drought came again to kill his two hard-earned heifers forcing him to seek an alternative source of income in Garissa Town.

Aden realised life was not promising in Garissa town and he made an overnight decision again to travel to Eastleigh in Nairobi to seek job opportunities.

“I travelled to Nairobi by lorry ferrying cattle and was dropped at Eastleigh's 10th Street. It was a new beginning but the weather was not friendly," Aden said.

He knew no one in Eastleigh. As he strolled around the streets, he saw a mosque at California's Kona Bidii where he spent a month as his new home.

He kept on looking while praying for a job as he went some days without even a meal until one day he was approached by a physically disabled person who offered to help him.

Through the man, he secured a job at a retail shop in Eastleigh and later became a hawker in Eastleigh, Kisumu, Migori and Kakamega counties.

During his hustling moments, Aden said he developed a dream for education following a language barrier he encountered.

He returned to Garissa in 2013 and enrolled for adult education classes before sitting for his KCPE as a private candidate in 2019 and scored 296 marks.

Admitted to Boystown Secondary School in Garissa, Aden opted for Young Muslim Secondary School, a private school closer to home.