I was in disbelief when I got the email that invited me to speak at the fourth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U). There is no way I can share a platform with President Bill Clinton and Sean Penn, I said to myself. This must be spam. How could the former President of the United States share a panel with a Kenyan slum boy?
When I found out that the email was real, I was incredibly nervous. But I give thanks to Shining Hope For Communities and Jessica Posner ’09, the co-founder of Shining Hope, who encouraged me, and proved to me that I could do it. I realized, however, how interesting it can be to draw a picture of two parallel lives.
In 1993, Bill Clinton became the President of the United States of America. That same year, a malnourished Kennedy Odede was hardly surviving. That was the year that I almost died from malaria. My family was constantly hanging between life and death. My mom used to leave me alone for an entire day while she looked for odd jobs in the slums so that I might survive. I was always hungry and sick and we had no money to do anything to fix it. In a world like this, who could dare to dream that a little boy striving to survive in the slums of Kibera would one day meet President Clinton?
In 1995, my fellow panelist Sean Penn emerged as a prominent actor in, “Dead Man Walking.” That same year, little Kennedy joined the street life. I had to leave my parents, as they could not provide food for my siblings or me. I had to search for food on my own, and I slept cold on the streets under the market stalls. In short, I became a homeless kid whose only schooling was the harsh education of street life.
As I sat onstage during the panel, I thought of how my life has transformed since those times. I couldn’t help but wonder about the common qualities shared by leaders, and if I possessed any of them. I was born to a young woman who had been denied education and could not prosper. My stepfather mistreated my mother, and she was often almost beaten to death—but she never gave up on her kids. She taught me how to care about other people and to take action to bring change. My mom believes in education. She once told me, “leadership without education is like being a puppet of the oppressor.” She believes that an informed, educated leader will always be an obstacle to the oppressor. She instilled in me the value of respecting women, despite the fact that she came from a community in which women are often degraded. I have never known my biological father, nor do I know his whereabouts. In this, I felt a bit of a connection to President Bill Clinton, as his father passed away before he was born and his stepfather mistreated his mother. Like me, he came from a humble background and was the first one from his family to attend college.
Growing up, I never knew that one day I would be on a panel with President Bill Clinton. I am an optimistic person, but this was far beyond my dreams. I enjoyed meeting the President and I had fun talking to him and Sean Penn backstage. In truth, they are just nice people like us who happen to be on the world stage. But they are also more than what we read or watch on the television. They are inspiring people to be around.
We never know what tomorrow might hold. But I know that the future of tomorrow and the years to come are determined by the decisions we make and how we behave today. We must focus on our actions today to prepare for tomorrow and the future. At one point, President Clinton said that he wished to be young again. I was shocked to hear that from a man like him, a man who seems to be in the prime of his life. The fact is that we are the future and we have it within us to make it great beyond our imaginations.
I believe that when President Clinton said that he wished to be young again, he meant that every moment is precious, and that he wishes he had more of these moments. For in every moment you can make changes in your life and in the lives of others. Every day of our lives, precious time is taken away from us. I urge you to make use of today and be an engine of change. For even when you have accomplished extraordinary things in your life, there is always more to do, and we will always need more moments.
Odede is a member of the class of 2012.