Kristina Wambui Kenyatta-Pratt

Kristina Wambui Kenyatta-Pratt (* September 1952 ) is a Kenyan special education teacher, founder of facilities for the disabled and ambassador for the visually impaired in Africa .

Life

She is the daughter and first child of the first President of Kenya Jomo Kenyatta and his wife Ngina Kenyatta . She comes from the Kikuyu ethnic group and, as a practicing Catholic, is now President of the National Fund for the Disabled of Kenya. Her brother Uhuru Kenyatta is the President of Kenya.

Because of the deportation of her parents, she was raised by her maternal grandmother Anne Nyokabi Muhoho in the small village of Gatitu in the Gatundu district . The mother spent the period from 1955 to 1960 in the Kamiti maximum security prison because she did not want to renounce her husband and his fight for uhuru . She saw her father for the first time in 1960 when she was 8 years old in Lodwar , where he lived with her mother under house arrest. She stayed with her parents with her sister Jeni and had a relatively difficult childhood. In 1961 the Kenyatta family moved to Maralal , but were still under house arrest until Kenyatta was freed on August 14, 1961. Mother Ngina lived in Gatundu, father Jomo was at home in political business in Nairobi.

From 1962 to 1964 Kristina lived in the family of Sir Derek Erskine (a liberal member of the Legislative Council, the colonial government) in Nairobi and attended Hospital Hill Primary School. In 1965 Kristina transferred to St. George's Primary School and had to run 10 kilometers a day. She completed her high school in Kenya High School . She began her studies at an art college in Allentown in Pennsylvania (PA), USA , and then devoted herself to work with the disabled. She moved to Kutztown State College (PA), where she earned a bachelor's degree in special education in 1974. In 1976 she obtained a Masters of Science degree from Lehigh University in Bethlehem (PA), also in special education.

Since 1980 she has been married to Victor Pratt , a native Lebanese who runs a consulting company. The couple has four children: Selina René (* 1982), Ngina (* 1983), Nyokabi (* 1985) and Jomo (* 1993).

On September 21, 2013, she and her family survived the Al-Shabaab militia attack on Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi . Her nephew and his partner died in the attack.

Services

After returning to Kenya, she found a job as a school councilor for special education. In 1977 Kristina was named Ambassador of the Visually Impaired to Africa by UNESCO . In 1978 she set about founding the Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE) in the Kasarani district , where teachers for the blind, hearing impaired and mentally handicapped are trained. In 1980 she gave up her job as director of special education in favor of the planned family.

Kristina was involved in numerous special education associations and schools, for example on the board of the “Kambui School for the Deaf”, the “Jacaranda School for the Mentally Handicapped” and the “Kenya Society for the Blind”. In 1979 she honored the Kenya Society for the Mentally Handicapped.

Awards

1980: Jimmy Carter President's Prize for Special Education

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Capital FM : Uhuru mourns nephew killed in Westgate attack, September 22, 2013
2. ↑ The Epoch Times : Kenya: Kristina Pratt, President Kenyatta's Sister, Escapes Nairobi Mall Attack, September 22, 2013

Web links

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