August 19, 2011 4.45 pm This story is over 151 months old

Kenyan overcomes adversity to join Lincoln police

Proud Kenyan: The UK’s first Kenyan police officer is walking a beat in Lincoln and has an interesting life story to tell.

The first Kenyan police officer in Britain has achieved countless arrests during his four months since he joined Lincolnshire Police.

From a village in Kenya, Jesee Karanga (30), set a life-long ambition to move to the UK and become a police officer, overcoming challenges like raising money for Kenyan school fees to gain a good enough education.

Living in a mud and straw hut in Mbari-ya-Maingi with a his mum, dad and four siblings, Karanga had no free access to education, and despite having 10,000 people fundraising for him, he still didn’t have enough to finance his secondary education, getting sent home numerous times.

Karanga said: “Every time I was sent home I used to sneak back and because the teachers liked me, they used to swap classes so the headmaster didn’t see me.”

Despite his efforts, Karanga would not be able to sit his final exams without paying the school fees, so he travelled over 100 miles to Nairobi to see the Director of Education for Kenya. She permitted him to take the exams and he went on to pass.

Running a small business creating posters, he managed to pay off his schooling debts but got his lucky break when he met the Business Community Manager at HMRC Staff College at Lawress Hall, near Lincoln, who was visiting a school in Nairobi where Karanga was working.

The woman he met in Nairobi is now his wife, and helped him move to the UK and follow-up his ambition to become a police officer.

Karanga has not forgotten the help he received from the people of his village and is now returning the favour.

Karanga visits home at least once a year, taking suitcases full of clothes and handouts to give to the deprived areas

“It gives me so much pleasure to be able to give something back to them.”

Not satisfied with this, he will be going to Mbari-ya-Maingi at the end of the month to meet with officials and try and get his latest project of building an academy, consisting of a primary and secondary school alongside a small university.

“I hope that young deprived people from the area and from all over Kenya will have the opportunity to receive a full education,” said Karanga.

Jesee Karanga will be in Kenya for two weeks at the end of August before returning back to his beat in Lincoln.