Marissa🇰🇪 @kiruimarissa - Twitter Profile

If you come from a struggling background, please think twice before joining CHUKA UNIVERSITY, unless you’re ready to battle stress, humiliation, and depression. This is what is happening at Chuka ... I am a third student at Chuka University, and I’m writing this with tears in my eyes ... not just for myself, but for many of my fellow comrades who are suffering silently. Every morning, I walk to the school gate hoping that maybe today, they’ll understand and let me in. But no , the security guard looks at me, shakes his head, and turns me away because I don’t have a gate pass. I try to explain, to beg even, but they have been told that rules are rules. No gate pass, no entry. And what’s stopping me from getting a gate pass? A small fee balance. Just Ksh 2,500 shillings. My mother is a nursery school teacher and earns a salary of Ksh. 18,000. A woman with hands hardened by chalk dust and a heart full of love. She wakes up before sunrise every day to teach little children their ABCs, yet her salary can barely cover rent and food. She has sold what she could, borrowed from friends, and sacrificed everything to keep me in school. Right now, she has nothing left. She’s waiting for her next paycheck to clear my balance. But time is not waiting. I’ve already missed a CAT and it feels like losing everything I’ve worked for. This means, I am at a risk of differing my studies, and that thought breaks me and definitely sends my mum to an early grave. All because of Ksh 2,500 and a university admin that thinks we are refusing to pay.. Sometimes I stand outside the university gate and watch my classmates walk in. Some wave at me, others avoid eye contact because they don’t know what to say. And I can’t blame them. The shame, the frustration, the helplessness….. it eats you from inside. I feel lost and misunderstood. How can a professor not understand that I am not refusing to pay.? We’re only asking for compassion and understanding. Please , Let us access classes with our student IDs until exams. Give our parents and guardians time to gather the money. Denying us access doesn’t help , it only crushes our dreams and literally pushes us to the extremes. To the university administration, please, we are your children too. Don’t let poverty lock us out of education. We just want a chance to learn.