RC Nairobi Samawati: Conceived out of Necessity, Serving Beyond
By Lilian Onyach
The Rotary Club of Nairobi Samawati (RCNS) is one of three corporate rotary clubs (currently) in District 9212. Its membership is primarily Stanbic Bank employees and was chartered in December 2020.
RCNS was formed out of necessity. In mid-2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic continued to pose the most significant threat to lives and livelihoods across the world, the Bank, through the Stanbic Foundation, donated ventilators and other personal protective equipment (PPEs) to the Ministry of Health, significantly boosting the country’s Covid-19 response preparedness. Beyond this national effort, the Foundation sought to partner with a credible organization whose governance and ethos matched its own, to run community-level intervention programmes geared at supplementing government awareness and infection prevention efforts.
This search led the Bank to partner with various Rotary Clubs within Rotary District 9212, to coordinate the supply of sanitation stations, oxygen equipment and personal protective equipment in all the 47 counties. The partnership facilitated the donation of many sanitation stations and hygiene provisions in Kenya and South Sudan.
Bank staff, inspired by this effort, incessantly asked how they could individually and collectively supplement the Bank’s corporate efforts in supporting the government and communities. This bore the idea of a Rotary club for the Stanbic Bank staffers, and a series of baby steps followed culminating into the chartering of RC Nairobi Samawati on 19 December 2020.
RCNS leadership and members quickly identified digital literacy as the Club’s flagship project in collaboration with the Stanbic Foundation. This realization came as we reflected on the economic after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and how digital business skills will be necessary for small and medium business owners in a Covid-19 world.
Along this literacy theme, in June 2021, Charter President Rosemary Wainaina of the Rotary Club of Ridgeways (one of our mother clubs) extended an invitation to RCNS members to partner in a literacy project. The project entailed the donation of books to promote literacy across public schools in Kenya. Our members immediately sprang into action and successfully nominated eighteen (18) schools from seven (7) counties to receive more than 12,000 general literacy books.
To augment this project and to ensure its impact remains sustainable, the Stanbic Foundation (RCNS’ strategic partner), donated sixteen (16) computers to be used by the schools for library management. The first batch of 6,263 books and computers was delivered to 10 public schools in Athi Ward of Kitui County on 10th and 11th September 2021, while the rest of the deliveries are scheduled to be completed by the end of October 2021.
We are buoyed by the progress the 10-month-old RCNS has achieved and look ahead with conviction that through our three Ts (Talents, Time and Treasures), we will continue to serve to change lives.
In conclusion, RCNS appreciates the purposeful partnership it enjoys with RC Ridgeways and the Stanbic Foundation. Your support and generosity have delivered benefits beyond what RCNS alone could have put together. We look forward to expanding and deepening our mutually beneficial relationship.
