MUSIC-KENYA: New Gospel Group Fights Drug Menace

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Feb 10 1998 (IPS) - A new group of gospel singers, whose music has taken Kenya by storm, is on a crusade against drug abuse, illicit sex and the consumption of alcohol among the youth of this country.

The group, called Virtuous, feels it’s up against an emergency situation that needs quick action. “If drastic measures are not taken, it will be a near impossibility to find a 10-year-old virgin or drug-free children,” says its director, Murugi Mugo- Bitange.

Virtuous was formed in October 1997 by three female singers, Christine Kamau, 27, Mary Gatheru, 23, and Jane Kagotho, 30. “We got the name from the Bible,” says a smiling Kamau, who is the leader of the trio. It “means pure, and in other words, rare to find.”

The trio say they will reach young people through a series of concerts. “We will perform in churches, schools, clubs and parks. We want to get the youth off vices by being a role model to them,” says Kamau.

Mugo-Bitange adds that “Through these concerts, we intend to create a forum for the youth to express their giftings in a morally clean and pure environment as well as to provide a decent outing for them.”

The problems affecting the youth are enormous, according to Mugo-Bitange. “There hardly one person today who does not have a cousin, friend, brother, sister, son, daughter, nephew, niece or some acquaintance or other who has been misled into drugs, crime, illicit sex or some other societal vice of this generation,” she says.

The target group – teenagers below the age of 15 years — make up about 49 percent of the Kenya’s 30 million people, according to the latest official statistics here. The growing drug menace is also worrying the government education authorities and the Director of Education, Sammy Kyungu, recently urged Kenyans to close ranks and fight the scourge.

‘It must be fought at every level, in homes, schools and workplaces. We cannot afford to become a country of drug- dependent people. We must all work to get rid of this evil,” he said.

Shedding some light on the magnitude of the problem, Michael Jackobam, who heads Kenya’s anti-narcotic unit, told a local newspaper here late last year that 40 percent of the students in secondary schools, colleges and universities in Kenya were on drugs supplied mostly by non-teaching staff and outsiders.

“The most frightening drug in Kenya is heroin and more teenagers are getting hooked to it,” adds an official at the Kenya Institute of Stress Management. “This drug poses a major health problem because the country does not have adequate skills to manage the problem.”

Some youth also abuse cocaine and mandrax which can now be obtained in various shady places in Nairobi and in other big towns in Kenya, according to the official. The drugs enter Kenya through the country’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, which the Kenyan authorities are battling to prevent from becoming an international gateway for narcotics traffickers.

A ceremony launching both Virtuous and its campaign against drugs abuse, illicit sex and alcoholism was supposed to have been held at the Hilton Hotel here on Feb 6, but was postponed because of ethnic clashes in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

“We have postponed the launch to February 14,” explained Mugo- Bitange. “This is in identification with and in sympathy for those lives that were lost and even as the Bible says that we should mourn with those who mourn. (Therefore) it will not be appropriate to go on with such a festive evening while multitudes are mourning.”

More than 100 people were killed in inter-communal clashes in the Rift Valley Province between the second week of Jan and the first week of February, while hundreds of homes were set on fire.

The trio say they will also alter their busy schedule in order to have a fund-raising concert on Feb. 21 for the families of victims of the unrest. It has already donated some Kshs 25,000 (one US dollar equals 60 Kenya shillings) to the families.

After the Feb. 21 fund-raiser, Virtuous — which plans to build its own studio here — aims to make its debut abroad, beginning late February.

“We shall travel to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Kampala (Uganda), Lilongwe (Malawi) and Lusaka (Zambia),” says Mugo- Bitange. “We want to take on the continent. We want our presence felt in Africa.”