HomeSir William Mackinnon who was working with David Livingstone’s nephew Alexander Low Bruce were tasked with ensuring that the Imperial British East Africa Company had penetrated into the African continent.
Why? The Brits then viewed Africa as a dark continent which was heavily endowed with natural resources that needed to be exploited. The colonialists also viewed native Africans as sources of cheap labour.
Mackinnon, however, thought different. He felt that there was a need for Africans to learn how to read and write on top of knowing about the Christian religion. Consequently, Mackinnon silently raised money from his family and friends and assembled a team of missionaries who came and set base at Kibwezi.
They came under the East Africa Scottish Missions and they established a camp at Kibwezi. With time they experienced a barrage of challenges such as hostile locals, missionaries succumbing to malaria and bad weather.
This occasioned their move to Kikuyu where the Church of Scotland Mission took over the East Africa Scottish Missions. They diversified their portfolio to giving Africans medical and vocational training.
The base of operations which was at Thogoto was later called the Kikuyu Mission. Dr David Clement Ruffell Scott from the Blantyre Mission based in Malawi took over leadership of the mission after the previous leader Thomas Watson succumbed to pneumonia in 1909.
This mission built a couple of schools, hospitals, a vocational training centre and the Scott-Watson church. The Church of the Torch which Kikuyus called “Kimuri” was built twenty years later after the Scott-Watson Memorial church became too small for the growing congregation. It had a seating capacity of 250.
Decades later when Kenya gained independence, the first President, Jomo Kenyatta started encouraging the spirit of harambee. Harambee literally means let’s pull together. President Kenyatta encouraged Kenyans to work together so that they can pool resources together and build the infant nation. This was where CBOs were born. With the support of the government, dozens of hospitals, schools, training centers were built to benefit the community.
