The
last one year has been an amazing journey, and I'm so grateful to be a part of
it. It's a rare thing to be able to touch people's lives this way, and I try to
remind myself to make the most of every opportunity I get.
As most of you know,
MSI is a nonprofit,
volunteer-driven organization that seeks to inspire communities to own the
responsibility of keeping the environment clean through action and community
participation in our monthly clean-ups, and education programs.
People often wonder the
story behind the start of MSI and they ask why I ever thought of starting such
an organization. I remember, in July 6, 2013 at conference, I was having a
conversation with an American gentleman I had just met. His name is Kyle. He was interested
to know my life story and my passion. I remember telling him that my biggest dream is to
see a clean, litter free environment in Nairobi with a proper waste management
system.
After all that
blabbering, he asked me one question, “Why don’t you do something about it?”
I replied saying I was
afraid. He looked at me and what he told me next changed everything.
He said to
me,“You have everything
you need to do what God has told you to do.”
I had a passion for the environment. I wanted
to be a problem solver and to be an influencer. I was tired of seeing a dirty
Nairobi, but on that day, I learnt that my passion had to be greater than my
fear.
Later, I began sharing
the idea with some of my friends who have, since then, walked with me in this
journey. Today, the team has really grown. I got six other passionate and
self-driven people on board, rallying alongside me as we pursue this vision. To be great, you must surround yourself
with greater people. The organization membership has grown to over 200 people
and we have been able to have an average of 30 volunteers in every of our nine
previous clean ups.
The team works very
hard to ensure that our activities remain a success. The volunteers are so
important to MSI because we don’t just want to make Nairobi, and Kenya,
and the world, clean. We want Nairobi, Kenya and the world to be made clean by
people who live in it. This is because it is their environment and we
want them to own it and love it enough to lavish it with beauty in form of green
grass and less litter and good waste management.
Like any other thing, we
have our fair share of challenges but we continue to overcome them. In our
journey, the NCC has really supported us and most importantly, we are on GOD’s
side, the Creator of the environment we are fighting to protect. We look
forward to more volunteers, more partnerships and a cleaner environment.
So, the story behind
MSI came to be as a result of a dream given by God, and passion for the best
environment there can be.
It is driven by the
same passion, and passionate people who want to be influencers and problem
solvers. It is inspired by you and I and other volunteers here who make a
difference by owning this environment and committing to making it clean.
It is not MSI’s work to
clean up, it is yours and mine. So we clean today, not litter tomorrow and tell
everyone we know to do the same and to join MSI for the next clean up, every
day from today.
We will be content not
when the world is clean but when the people living in the world make it their
duty to keep it clean.
HAPPY ONE YEAR, ONE
MONTH ANNIVERSARY MSI AND MSAFITES!
Purity Wanjohi.
Founder
