Our Purpose
Four callings the Foundation has accepted from the elders and the households of the Kalenjin nation.
“A calf is born already carrying the burden of the herd.”
Nandi, on inheritance
The Foundation exists to hold four callings at once, and to be judged on whether we honour them together. Any one of them alone is a good thing. All four, kept over generations, is what our elders asked of us, and what any serious nation must in the end ask of itself.
The four callings
- 01
To organise
Bring the fifteen natural communities of the Kalenjin nation into one civic household without dissolving what makes each of them itself. We are a federation of tribes, not a single tribe.
- 02
To steward
Protect the forests, waters, soils, and grazing lands of our country as a trust from those who came before us to those who will come after. A steward does not sell the well.
- 03
To enterprise
Build cooperatives, businesses, and savings groups that turn the daily labour of our households into wealth that stays with them, and with the county, and with the nation.
- 04
To speak
Represent the Kalenjin nation with dignity in the assembly of Kenya and in the wider world. Never a demand delivered in anger. Always a case set out clearly and made to hold.
The order of the callings
The elders set them in this order for a reason. Organising is first because none of the rest is possible without it. Stewardship is second because if we do not keep the country, there is nothing to enterprise on.
Enterprise is third because a well organised, well stewarded people who remain poor have not yet honoured the covenant. And to speak is last because a voice earned in the first three is a voice that carries.