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Sojourn for the U.N.
After escaping Kenya at the age of 14, Dr. Josphat Mugo Gadhuhi '63 would become an expert in sociology and his planning would help governments and non-government organizations implement aging and population programs.
A years-long collaboration between then Sen. John F. Kennedy and Kenyan politician Tom Mboya helped alumnus Dr. Josphat Mugo Gachuhi ’63 escape a violent civil war in East Africa when he was only 14 years old. Gachuhi was one of nearly 800 Kenyans who were part of a humanitarian airlift program which transported students to the United States and Canada between 1959 and 1963.
By adding summer school to his schedule at Cheshire Academy, Gachuhi graduated in 1963, just three years after arriving on campus. Upon receiving a PhD in sociology in 1969 from State University of New York, Buffalo, his professional career centered on public service and social justice reform in both the United States and Kenya.
Gachuhi returned to Kenya in 1970 with his wife and young daughter. Soon after, he joined the Institute for Developmental Studies at the University of Nairobi. Then, in 1975, he was hired as a consultant for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). During a decade-long tenure, he shared his expertise in sociology as the international organization’s regional population adviser for Africa.
In that position, Gachuhi helped regional governments and non-governmental organizations implement family planning and population programs, according to his colleague Charles Njanga of Kenya. Gachuhi developed a draft document, Njanga said, that became the basis for their country’s National Council for Population and Development. He also began developing an expertise on support programs for the continent’s aging population.
At the 122nd session of the executive board of UNESCO in 1985 in Paris, a resolution was proposed that a “Trust Fund for Aging” be implemented to “meet the rapidly increasing needs of the aging” in developing countries. The proposal stemmed from a report delivered to the United Nations World Assembly on Aging held in Vienna in 1982. Gachuhi’s knowledge and advice as the regional population adviser for Africa would certainly have been considered as part of the larger proposal.
Gachuhi’s path from African schoolboy to a population expert began when he learned from his mentor, Mboya, that an “excellent school” had been found for him. According to his biography “Thirst for Education: A Kenyan’s Sojourn to America in Search of Education,” published in 2014, Gachuhi was told he would attend a school in Connecticut called Cheshire Academy. Never mind that he didn’t know where in America the state was located. Gachuhi noted that the Academy offered him a scholarship with room, board, and tuition.
“There were no conditions attached other than maintaining good grades and performing light duties,” Gachuhi wrote. “I had no other information about the school other than it had been founded by Christians,” he noted. His book reveals that the author did not underestimate the challenges he would face when he arrived on campus in the fall of 1960.
RIGHT: MUGO GACHUHI AND THE STAFF OF THE ACADEMY REVIEW, THE SCHOOL NEWSPAPER
One of Gachuhi’s best friends at the Academy was Ric Haynes ’64. “I sat next to him at the first school assembly,” Haynes said. “I asked Gachuhi ‘where are you from, Philadelphia?’ He told me no, Nairobi. I was aware of the culture,” Haynes continued. “I asked him ‘are you Maasai or Kukuli?’ That started the friendship.” (Gachuhi was Kukuli.) Haynes went on to learn key phrases in Swahili from his friend.
Haynes also learned what it was like to be around Gachuhi. “People were prejudiced at the Academy. It was a rough place in the 1960s. When you’re friends with a black person, other students say horrible things to you as well,” Haynes noted. Their bond endured, however. “Friendships are more valuable than shaming. [Gachuhi] was very strong,” in his ability to ignore the taunts, Haynes said.
“I did not experience extreme racism while at the Academy,” Gachuhi wrote in his book. [Most of ] the people I met were at least cordial; others were even good to me … The family of the late Michael Kita [ Junior School Head] used to invite me to [their] home for weekends, Thanksgiving, and Christmas dinners. I felt very welcome in their home during my years in Cheshire,” he wrote.
The only other black boarding student at the time was Ted Langston-Chase ’63, who was from Washington, D.C. “Mugo and I became close friends in our senior year. Most of his friends were musical and artistic. Those were the students who were more inclined to engage with him,” he said.
Through his parents, Langston-Chase had met a number of adults from Sierra Leone and Liberia. The two classmates were members of the International Club and talked about countries in Africa and other parts of the world, Langston-Chase said. By his senior year, Gachuhi was president of the club.
“He was reserved. Mugo had to tolerate a lot of misconceptions about Africa,” Langston- Chase said. “Images from African movies left an impression. Tarzan for instance. Students presumed everyone in Africa carried spears and lived in huts.”
Gachuhi ignored or overlooked the taunts and went on to a lifetime of achievement. Following his work with UNESCO, he joined Kenyatta University College in 1985 to work in its Bureau of Educational Research. Gachuhi remained at the college for about 15 years as a teacher, researcher, and community development specialist.
- ANONYMOUS
In 2000, Gachuhi was asked to join a taskforce in Kenya to write a “National Policy on Older Persons and Aging.” The paper was reviewed the next year by the Organization of National Unity and HelpAge International.
Oxford University came calling in 2004 asking Gachuhi to present a paper to the university’s institute on aging. He wrote in his autobiography that scholars from other parts of Africa and the world attended the conference. The conclusion was to establish the African Research on Aging Network which was endorsed by the United Nations.
During a number of years that Gachuhi was involved in national committees and task forces, he also had to contend with a serious disease: diabetes. In 1997, he had a kidney transplant and was hospitalized several times in the following years for complications.
Gachuhi returned to the Academy in 2008 for the first time since graduation. He wrote in his autobiography that he hoped to find more information about how he was chosen to attend school in Connecticut. Despite reviewing his student records, Gachuhi was not able to answer the long-carried question. Former archivist Ann Moriarty was, however, able to provide a trove of photos and information about his student years, some of which is published in the autobiography.
The same year as his visit to the Academy, Gachuhi was appointed as a visiting professor at the Georgia State University Gerontology Institute in Atlanta. In an email sent to Moriarty, he writes “I am quite involved in research on older persons after doing development research” [for HelpAge International]. He added that Kenyatta University planned to offer undergraduate and graduate classes based on his curriculum.
At the age of 75, Mugo Gachuhi passed away in Atlanta on March 8, 2016. A message posted on a memorial page said “Mugo was a man of immense intellectual capacity. He had a good sense of humor and he used it to great effect, making those around him very comfortable and willing to listen as he ably articulated his ideas.”
- Ted Langston-Chase '63
