Every person in life always desires to do something that will make someone happy and be appreciated for a job well done. Unfortunately, most of us do not know how, when and what to do though we always have a lot of opportunities around to serve mankind. This is just a summary of my walk in this lifestyle of humanity and lifesaving.
Am one of such who at an early age in primary school desired to do good to people more so to save lives and started as a scout. My desire was that one day I would become a doctor. When I reached form two at Bavuni Secondary School in Nakuru, I was discontinued because of lack of school fees, poor performance and engaging in drugs. Later I became a street boy for four years in Nakuru town.
It is at the streets that I learnt the value of humanity through being compelled to attend to many injured colleagues(street families) and sometimes other people either involved in Road traffic accidents ,assaults ,gunshot wounds etc. This made me desire more to be a doctor as I was handling a lot of very severe cases.
Later after the four years, I went back to school at Anestar School and It is here where I started practicing first aid skills which I learnt through apprenticeship from scouts who had learnt the skills. Later I became a school teacher before joining the University and again here I dealt with a lot of cases including dormitories on fire, road accidents, medical conditions etc.
When I joined Moi university , I joined Kenya Red Cross, St John Ambulance, Guidance and Counseling and Peer Counseling clubs where I became a very active member and within some few months I was immediately nominated by Kenya Redcross Moi University chapter to be the training coordinator where I was incharge of all trainings like induction, First Aid, blood drive, humanitarian training, HIV and Aids etc. It is here where I met very influential people like Abbas Gullet the Kenya Redcross Secretary General, Mr Joe Wangendo the Founder and Executive Director of Blood link who later became my boss amongst others who are my closest mentors even today.St John Ambulance also appointed me as a Divisional Superintendent to be incharge of the club due to the passion and vision I had. It is in Moi University that I pursued advanced emergency response courses, ILS, Disaster Management, Fire Safety and later Training of Trainers with St John Ambulance Sommerset United Kingdom and became an approved trainer and mentored a lot of young people. Immediately I cleared my studies even before I graduated, St John Ambulance employed me on May 2012 as a Trainer, within six months I was promoted to a Training and development Officer, later to Assistant Training Manager and later Training Manager and due to that I had trained 10,000 people by end of 2014 and responded to a minimum of 127 recorded incidents and received an award form the deputy president Mr. William Ruto.
Some of the incidents I have responded to include:-
- The Post-election violence 2008
- The West gate attack
- Kihonge collapsed building
- Huruma collapsed building – 3 different incidents
- Multiple Thika road traffic accidents
- Sinai fire tragedy
- Nakuru – Nairobi highway multiple road accidents
- Hundreds of other incidents
At a Training manager I was conducting hundreds of trainings in East Africa and in some cases was part of government committees designing several policies like the EMS, MCI, Fire and Disaster Management plan also participated in designing the Machakos County Emergency Response plan and Training needs assessment and the Kenyatta National Hospital Disaster Response plan.
I have also been hosted by QTV, Inooro Tv, Family Tv, Hope Tv among others to discuss about safety. I have participated in different safety competitions and won, I have nurtured young emergency medical responders like Brian Ochieng who was with a patient in an ambulance for 18hours, Brian Beuttah who was the best EMT in kenya in 2015 amongst others. I have trained the military, presidential escorts, GSU, Recce group , fire brigade first aiders etc. I have conducted safety advise to companies like Crown paints, Brookside Ltd, Kapa Oils, Villa Rosa Kempiski, Alexander Forbes, USIU, Kenya Utalii College etc amongst others.
I have also started an initiative called Makinika Afrika that does training and free safety awareness through social media campaign, written articles, schools and church visits and in public places. I have also established the Nairobi Safety Shop which stocks safety and health equipment. I encourage young people to take part in humanity activities more so through the skills, talents, abilities and opportunities they have. The name Ambassador Mbugua Kamau came from several government officials people who found me doing free safety awareness, trainings and in social media. This link contains free safety videos and materials that might help you save a life https://www.facebook.com/makinikaafrika.org/
