Dr. Wamwari Waichungo
To celebrate the life of my late father, Dr Asaph Waichungo, and to honor his legacy and passion for education, I am happy to share the establishment of an endowment for the Asaph Waichungo Memorial Mathematics Scholarship, in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Impact
Dad was a recepient of the African Scholarship Program of American Universities (ASPAU). A program enabling highly qualified African secondary school graduates to obtain first degree training at US institutions of higher learning. The program run from 1961 to 1970 with 236 American Colleges and Universities granting scholarships to more than 1500 students from several African countries, including Kenya 🇰🇪.
The scholarship enabled, my father, Asaph Waichungo, a young man from a small rural town, Ihururu in Central Kenya, and very humble beginnings, to travel to the United States of America. In 1964, he commenced studies at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Dad graduated in 1968 with a degree in Mathematics and returned home to Kenya to launch a successful career working in the Directorate of Personnel Management, in the Office of the President.
In the words of Nelson Mandela “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.