Hello, Simran here! Welcome to post #1 of our School for a Village member spotlight series! Over the course of the coming weeks, we are excited for you all to get to know each of the team members at School for a Village better and to learn the stories behind the faces you see on our website. Being introduced first is our hardworking and invaluable Project Manager, Victor Kamugu.

At School for a Village, Victor helps design and implement our school-specific projects. He collaborates with our partners, schools in Kenya and India, and the rest of the S4V team to learn about what unique challenges schools are facing and to subsequently create innovative solutions to promote quality STEM education. He is currently working on a plethora of cool and meaningful projects such as developing a series of videos that highlight science experiments common within the Indian curriculum, designing a peer-to-peer tutoring intervention involving various Kenyan secondary schools, and organizing digital inclusion bootcamps where students in Kenya will be able to learn skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century. But, to learn who Victor is as a person outside of School for a Village, I asked him a series of questions, of course starting with the dreaded “tell me about yourself”….

Victor is 21 years old (but is turning 22 in February!) and he resides in Kagwe, Kenya. When it comes to non-serious issues such as jokes, Victor considers himself to be talkative and bubbly. However, in public when he isn’t surrounded by close friends and family, he tends to be more reserved. Victor claims he is terrible at one-on-one conversations (although based upon my lovely interactions with him, I respectfully disagree), but surprisingly is much better at speaking in front of large audiences. He truly enjoys the thrill/scare that comes with public speaking (I wish I could relate), and one of his proudest accomplishments was actually being named “best presenter” at a large research competition in high school.

Victor comes from a relatively large family of 7, and he has one older brother and three older sisters. Ok, well including his three dogs, I guess he technically comes from a family of 10! Even though he is the youngest child, he does not fit into the typical narrative of the spoiled, idle younger child. He didn’t have the opportunity to be spoiled, for at the age of just 8 years old, he enrolled in a boarding primary school called Pen-Elite Academy. Victor credits Pen-Elite Academy with much of his character and intellectual development, and even after moving to a different school for secondary school with an entirely new student body, he cherishes the memories and friends he has made at the primary school level. As a reverend, Victor’s father is a big community man, beloved by many in the town of Kagwe. Victor claims that he is a mini-version of his father, although he cannot picture himself following in his father’s footsteps by becoming a pastor. For Victor, he wouldn’t mind the public speaking aspect of the role, but he likes being slightly removed from organized religion, for Victor would prefer to instead encourage people to contemplate what they believe to be right and wrong and good and bad based on their own lived experiences. However, like his father, Victor grows attached to and cares deeply for those he is close to….speaking of those he is close to, a fun fact is that Victor actually went to the same high school as School for a Village’s COO, Jefferson, and both of them live in the same constituency in Kenya!

Those at School for a Village believe in dreaming big, and Victor is certainly no exception. Victor likes to fantasize about his life, and he believes that if you think about things such as your aspirations long enough, they have a funny way of actualizing into reality. Since he was 10 years old, Victor has wanted to become a mechanical engineer. His dream job would be to work on engineering/design-related tasks for the United Nations, travelling to different project sites all around the world to engage in research and innovation. If Victor does not end up pursuing a career in engineering, he would want to be involved in public relations—in high school, he was actually given the nickname, “The Governor,” because he would always challenge rules imposed by the student council in order to create a more just community! He also finds himself thinking of the green frequently—he is passionate about green-building and protecting the environment as much as possible. In fact, when Victor grows older, he dreams of living in a house teeming with green flora & fauna. In addition, Victor dreams of having a life where he does not need to be efficient 24/7, but can have time to relax. He has also always fancied those boujee high-end parties where he can sport fashionable tuxedos. Victor decided to join School for a Village because he has always wanted to immerse himself in philanthropy—thus, when Jeff told him about the position, Victor figured that through the role of Project Manager, he could help ignite positive change and fulfill his dream of engaging in service work.

Professionally, Victor is passionate about design that is centered around simple, but life-changing innovations. For instance, he is inspired by M-Pesa, a mobile phone-based money transfer service that allows Kenyans to wirelessly transfer money. M-Pesa has revolutionized Victor’s daily life, and because of the service, he can go an entire semester without physically touching money. Similar to how M-Pesa has made his life easier, Victor hopes to touch the lives of others for the better by designing analogous innovative STEM solutions. In terms of his personal, non-professional passions, Victor loves to play tennis and do taekwondo. At Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, the university he currently attends, he thoroughly enjoys going to and hosting social gatherings with close friends. In his free time, Victor also loves listening to old school music and classics from artists such as Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. He loves watching TV series such as The Blacklist that feature strong characters and reading creative life-coaching books. Currently, he is reading The 5 AM Club, a book that teaches people how to maximize productivity. Victor’s favorite STEM subject is physics because he loves how applicable it is to real-world situations, and his favorite food is chapati, a delicious flatbread that is a staple of South Asian, East African, and Caribbean cuisine.

Two of Victor’s role models include Manu Chandaria and Jackson Biko, a writer who runs a blog called “Bikozulu.” Manu Chandaria is a prominent Kenyan businessman who is on the board of several prominent East African companies, and he is also extremely involved in philanthropy, serving as the benefactor of numerous schools and clinics across Kenya. What Victor admires most about Manu Chandaria is that despite his undisputed success and fame, Chandaria maintains a pretty simple lifestyle. He does not live in an extravagant mansion or spend lavishly, and he only keeps about five suits in his closet. It is not everyday that someone literally awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II is able to show such humility and grace. As an avid writer and blogger himself, Victor is inspired by the work of Jackson Biko. Victor loves Biko’s weird, yet comforting attention to detail and how Biko will go off on tangents in interviews to explain the little things such as the way the morning coffee smelled. It is this appreciation for the simple things that Victor aims to incorporate into his own writing. Victor is also inspired by Biko’s consistency and persistence in keeping up with his blog posts.

If Victor could pick any songs that describe his life, he would pick “Buried in Detroit” by Mike Posner and “Midnight Train” by Sauti Sol, a Kenyan afro-pop band. He resonates with the beginning portion of “Buried in Detroit,” for Victor too considers himself to be a writer, a lover, a Midwest music man. Victor resonates with “Midnight Train” because it is very much about people burning the midnight oil, trying to make it in life through hard work and persistence. Victor first heard the song at a point in his life where he was trying to juggle a bunch of responsibilities—his job at School for a Village, his internship, his blog, and his schoolwork—so the message of the song inspired him to keep chugging along.

Finally, quotes that Victor tries to live by are “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none” by Shakespeare and “Life is already sufficiently complicated without your input.” He heard the second quote in a lecture, and Victor likes this quote because he tries to not make life harder for those around him. Victor makes an active effort to avoid acting in ways that increase the burden on others and instead tries to focus on making life easier for those around him….I can certainly vouch for this! At School for a Village, Victor’s dedication, organization, and attention to detail (in part inspired by Biko) has certainly made all of our lives easier.

I hope that our first post in our spotlight series helped you get to know Victor better as a person, for he is certainly a person worth knowing!