Jimmy Tune (Link to Jimmy’s profile) is a passionate young Kenyan – a living testimony of the efforts and zeal invested towards accomplishing the dream of building a better Kenya. Thanks to an Aiducation scholarship, he successfully finished secondary school in 2011 and is now in his third year at the Moi University doing a bachelors’ degree in Business Management. Jimmy has helped the Kenyan Aiducation team with recruiting new scholars and organizing mentorship academies and co-founding the Aiducation Alumni network. Today Jimmy is the vice president of the Aiducation Alumni network and he kindly agreed to share his experience with us.

AI: Jimmy, Aiducation is proud of the alumni having initiated the Aiducation Alumni Network. What was your motivation to help create this group?

J: The main reason behind the formation of the alumni network was to give back to society and to Aiducation International Kenya. We want to build a strong network of future leaders who will work as a team, and more like a family, to create positive change in their society.

AI: Jimmy, as the vice president of the Alumni Network, what are your responsibilities?

J: I am in charge of coordinating the alumni from the coast region of Kenya. My role is to make sure that communication within the network is smooth and effective. This means keeping in touch with the alumni and introducing new members to activities of the network.

AI: I heard that the Alumni Network also organizes their own academies.

J: Exactly, the alumni academies are another important platform that brings all alumni together apart from their regular meetings. The alumni academies take place at least once every year, usually soon after the Aidufellows Mentorship Academy. This is called the “What’s next academy”. This academy officially introduces our Alumni Network to the graduating students who have completed their final exams. We want them to learn about alumni activities and also share the alumni dream. We provide a session where the students are given an overview of university life and offered career guidance.

AI: Your achievements so far are amazing. What are the Alumni Network’s plans for the next year and the near future?

J: We have many plans for the future. For example, we want to organize “Mentorship to AiduFellows”. The alumni visit their high schools where some AiduFellows are students and the alumni will offer them motivation and guidance through sessions of mentorship. It’s more practical for the AiduFellows to learn from former alumni who went through the same school and situations with success.

Furthermore, the alumni network is embarking on a mission to fight key challenges in the society by organizing visits to the communities and to understand and help local concerns. The alumni are planning to visit the rift valley region of Kenya where there are cultures of female genital mutilation and early forced marriages to the young girls are still being practiced despite the efforts by the government. The alumni is planning to have informative sessions with these communities and the local leaders who want to fight concerning cultural practices that have denied the girls the right to education. This is a sad reality that the Alumni Network is determined to fight.

Interview: Kerstin Hockmann