Hi everyone, last week we had a member spotlight series blog post for one of our newer members. This week, I’ll be telling you a little bit about another one of our newest members: Stanley Kimenju. This one will be quick and sweet, mainly because we didn’t have too long for our interview as the semester was already kicking off.

Stanley Kimenju is our newest member on the projects team. He works directly with Victor, Jeff, Leah, and Lisa to ensure the successful completion of S4V projects in Kenya. He’s quite new to the team, but we can already tell that he is an extremely hardworking and ambitious individual. He is 23-years-old this year, and is from Nyeri, Kenya. He is currently in his fifth year studying mechanical engineering at the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology. This is actually his last year, so huge congratulations for being so close to finishing school!

We asked Stanley why he decided to join School for a Village, and his response was that in high school, he participated in a club called “Touch a Child’s Heart”, an organization that is concentrated around doing charity and giving back to the community. He is currently still in that club, but he thought S4V was doing something very similar, and decided to join us. Recently, he has been giving a lot of effort and attention to School for a Village, which we are grateful for. 

Outside of School for a Village, Stanley is extremely interested in entrepreneurship, especially in the field of agriculture. Stanley grew up on a farm, so he is passionate about farming. He hopes to one day start his own farm (maybe after he graduates. In fact, he already has a name for it: Spacegreen Farm! Stanley’s dream job in the future would be to be the CEO of his own farming start-up. 

In addition to his interest in entrepreneurship and farming, Stanley loves to dance salsa in his free time. Actually, one of his proudest achievements is to have been able to coordinate the salsa activities in his university for the past three years. During these three years, the club has seen tremendous growth and has even influenced the people around the county to get involved in salsa dancing as well. In addition to this achievement, Stanley is proud that he has made it through to the last year of university despite the challenges that he had been presented with. Joining S4V is also a proud moment for him, and we can’t wait to see what he can do!

Stanley doesn’t have a specific role model. When we asked him whether there were any role models he wanted to shout out, he said that he has different role models for different aspects of life. Instead of just having someone specific he can look up to, he picks traits that he sees in multiple people and look up to them for inspiration in that particular aspect of life. An example of this would be his brother. As the youngest child with three older siblings, Stanley has definitely been influenced by his older siblings. His brother is an extremely business-minded individual who inspired Stanley to go into farming.

Stanley’s philosophy in life is to live his best and always play his part. He wishes to live a life in which he does what he is supposed to do and does it at his literal best. With this mindset, it might be a surprise that his favorite subject in school is mathematics. He proclaims himself as a “math guru”, and well, with the hardworking mindset he possesses, it’s no surprise that his favorite subject is such a challenging one. 

Stanley’s favorite food is ugali, a corn-based item and fried chicken. I don’t know much about ugali, and he recommended that I try it, but I do know a lot about fried chicken, and I have to say, it’s one of my personal favorites as well. In terms of music, Stanley loves afrobeats. Some of his specific songs include “Something Better” by Johnny Drille, “U and Me” by Illenium & Sasha Sloan, and “Slow” by Sergio. He liked the movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.” featuring John Krasinski. He also loves comedy, especially “Friends”, but has not seen “The Office,” so is he a true comedy fan?

Hey ya’ll, thanks so much for reading! Sorry this is a little bit shorter than usual, but school has been picking up, and everyone’s getting busier and busier as the semester progresses. For now, this is the last of the member spotlight blog series, but I’m sure there will be more to come in the future. Once again, thanks! Jonathan checking out.