Ferdinand Mutua
Ferdinand, 67, is from Kangundo County, Kenya. Now retired from a job with Kenyan Airways, he is in charge of several older people's groups which engage in a variety of business activities. As a mentor to these groups, he helps them to maximise their profit, in addition to running his own businesses. He has been a participant in Age Demands Action since 2010.
You can start a conversation with Ferdinand by leaving a comment on this page, and we will make sure he gets your messages!
Read more about Ferdinand below:
Background: I grew up in this village where we were extremely poor. It was very difficult for us to go to school, life in general was difficuly, but luckily enough I was very bright in primary school. When I was at the end of primary school my father disappeared, so my mother took care of all 6 of us.
Education: I was able to attend primary school and later joined Machakos High School from 1959-1964. While I was in the third term of Form 6, I was fortunate enough to be recruited by the Kenya Airforce to start work in January 1965.
Family: I am married with 3 adult children - 2 daughters and a son. I also have one grandchild.
Career: In 1965, I joined the Kenyan Airforce and worked there until 1983. I got into business for a while until I got another job opportunity in 1989 with Kenya Airways where I was in charge of communication, navigation, instrumentation, and electrical functions of the aircraft. In 2006, I retired from the job and went back home to concentrate on my business.
Current situation: I am the Chairman of AIC Matungulu, the older people's group which I am in charge of. One of these groups keeps chicken, another group weaves African baskets and another group makes soap. My responsibility to the group is to help them be successful financially. I advise them on what kind of feeds to give to the chickens, when and where to make their sales and I also make sure that the money coming in from the sales is well taken care of and accounted for.
When I am not engaged in group work, I attend to my businesses; 100 chicken broilers, mango trees on 1.5 acres of land, 600 coffee trees, 4 acres of maize plantations and a hotel.
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Comments submitted for this page
Ferdinand (29th July 2013)
It is great to see that older people in Europe are interested in what is going in with us in Africa.
Regarding your question regarding assistance for older people in Kenya, we still need to work with you in Europe in ensuring that you advocate for your governments to offer assistance in providing us with services, particularly around health care. In my home area, mobile health services would be of great benefit to older people who have mobility issues or who cannot afford to travel to distant hospitals.
When older people go to hospitals, the care they receive is not very good. The staff are overworked and do not have much knowledge on ailments that older people suffer. I met the chief medical officer at my local hospital and talked to him about the issues older people face. Due to cultural beliefs and practices, it is hard for older people to disclose to younger doctors of different gender the exact ailments they are suffering from.
The area I live is very dry since we do not get much rainfall. Older people are normally left behind looking after their grandchildren while the able-bodied men and women go out looking for work or water. The lack of water is a major problem. If we could get assistance with constructing boreholes, then the older people and the community in general would benefit from access to water which would also help us farm and have a constant supply of food.
Also, I think the government should use the expertise of retired older people. Just because we have retired does not mean we are done with! I wouldn’t mind providing my skills to my local community. The opportunities are just not there.
Piet van Gils (5th July 2013)
In his film, Ferdinand gives a lot of information about his life. He is now 67 years old and has three children. While being busy with his daily activities he talks about his life, the poverty he and his family faced in his childhood, the sadness of when his father disappeared (“he did not die, he just disappeared”) and how his mother was faced with a life alone and had to raise six children by herself. In spite of all this, he went to school – appeared to be a very talented scholar - and was selected to be trained as a technical engineer for British Airways.
Life was treating him well. Ferdinand married and had a child; a daughter. His wife was not able to get pregnant again and therefore they didn’t have a son. Having a son is, for cultural reasons, very important to Ferdinand and the community he lives in. He was pressured to take a second wife. An idea his wife very much resented. However, Ferdinand married again and had two children with his second wife, a boy and a girl.
Nowadays he lives in the village where he was born. He told us that three years ago he joined a movement for older people: Age Demands Action. When they started, they went to the local hospital and had a lot of contact with the people in charge. They analysed the situation of older people in the hospital and gave advice to the people in charge on how to improve the care for older people. One of the suggestions was to create special rooms for older people. A few months later though, they came back to the hospital and noted that nothing had changed and the older patients were still being neglected.
This reminds me of my own experiences with healthcare systems. In order to improve systems structurally, patients (as the main stakeholders) need to be heard and involved in decision making processes. As Ferdinand said, “older people have much knowledge and experience to share with other people”.
The problem with the situation in Africa is that most older people are very poor and marginalised. This is also the case in Europe, but to a lesser extent. Throughout their lives they pay taxes, but on reaching old age they don’t receive the necessary attention from the government and policy makers. Ferdinand rightly makes a passionate plea towards European decision makers to better include older people in their work. Older people are and can be active in society and as such should be involved and taken on board in decision making processes. I cannot underline that enough.
Best regards,
Piet van Gils (63 years)