Giving back, with thanks
By
NADIA POZO
CS&T Staff Writer
God has led scientist Francis Acholla on a road filled with many twists
and turns.
Acholla often reflects on how it happened that he left the poor Kenyan
village where he was born, and came to live in Pennsylvania, as a senior
research scientist at the Rohm and Haas Company in Spring House.
Acholla is also the president and founder of Harambee in Progress, a nonprofit
organization that supports missionaries who work in remote African villages
and with at-risk youth in Philadelphia.
He knows it has always been the hand of God that has led him, he said.
Born into a very poor family, with 11 brothers and sisters, Acholla quickly
realized that the only way to get out of that kind of poverty was through
education.
“I was born in Katolo and then raised in a village outside of Mombasa,”
he said. “We lived in a two-room shack. Mom and Dad worked so hard
to provide for us. My dad was a bricklayer, and I could see how hard he
worked. He went on to become a foreman. It was all he knew how to do.”
After a full day’s work, Acholla’s father came home in the
evening to till his own family’s land — a small farm that
helped supplement his income and put food on the table. His mother also
worked the field, while tending to the household work and looking after
the Acholla children. And even they helped their parents farm after school.
“I convinced myself that the only way I could get us out of poverty
was through education, so I spent my time studying and helping at home,”
said Acholla, a parishioner of St. Ignatius of Antioch Parish in Yardley,
where he is a member of the parish council and serves as a hospitality
minister.
He went through college on an academic scholarship.
During his second year studying chemistry at the University of Nairobi,
the capital city of Kenya, Acholla was asked to assist an American scientist
from the University of Kansas, who was there with a program designed by
the United States Information Agency. The program was meant to show people
how to use technology to increase farm production and work more efficiently.
The two struck up a friendship, and the professor quickly became impressed
with Acholla’s knowledge and dedication.
Later, the professor obtained a full, four-year scholarship for Acholla
to earn his doctorate at the University of Kansas — all the young
man had to do was raise money for his flight.
But Acholla’s family was too poor to pay even for that.
He told the people in his native village of Katolo about his opportunity,
and they decided to pool their resources to raise the funds for him to
go. People who knew the Acholla family sold what little they had —
their crops and livestock — to raise the money.
“The village is so important to me because if it weren’t for
them I don’t think I’d be here,” he said.
While he was studying in Kansas, he met his wife, Renilde, a Burundian
woman who was in the university’s graduate program in education.
They married within a year, and went on to have three girls: Desiree,
23, Rosemary, 21, and Tina, 17.
Both Desiree and Rosemary were born in the United States while the Achollas
juggled family life and school work.
Acholla pursued post-doctoral work at the University of Illinois in Champagne,
where he spent two years before returning to Kenya with his family —
and where he left behind an open invitation to work as a visiting scientist.
He taught as a science professor at the University of Nairobi for three
years, during which his wife gave birth to their third daughter, Tina.
Then Acholla returned to Illinois: “I wanted my children to have
the best, in terms of opportunities and in what they could do,”
he said. “I knew it was here in the U.S. where they would have that.”
But he never forgot where he came from. He visited his village often and
tried to help his family and others in the village as much as possible.
Then, during one of his visit’s Acholla’s mother made a request
that would be the catalyst for Harambee in Progress.
Because the nearest church was 20 miles away, villagers walked 40 miles
to attend Mass. His mother asked him to find a way to build a church in
Katolo — which he managed to do, eventually. Even at that, some
people on the outskirts still walk 20 miles, round-trip.
Katolo got its church through the generosity of several pastors and parishes
throughout the Delaware Valley — especially Msgr. Samuel Shoemaker,
the pastor of St. Ignatius of Antioch, and parishioners there who provided
financial support as well as volunteers who helped with the construction
in Africa.
In their honor, the church is named St. Ignatius of Antioch in Katolo.
Since then, Harambee in Progress — Harambee is Swahili for “pooling
together” — has also seen several projects to completion in
Kenya and Burundi.
Acholla knows it has all been in the hands of God, and he continues to
thank Him for the generosity and support of so many people: “It
is truly remarkable what we can accomplish when we pool together in Christ,
and for Christ’s sake.”
CS&T staff writer Nadia Pozo can be reached at npozo@adphila.org or
(215) 965-4614.