Kenyan street kid trades drugs for degree

By Luke Baker

LONDON (Reuters) - As a teenager growing up in the Kenyan slum of Mathare, Sammy Gitau was a drug pusher, thief and gang member who was nearly beaten to death twice and ended up in a crack-induced coma.

On Thursday, he will graduate from Manchester University with a master's degree in development.

The road from the depths of oblivion to the peak of academic achievement has been a long and testing one, and not without its setbacks. At one point British authorities blocked Gitau from entering the country saying they didn't believe he was clever enough to do a graduate degree.

But Gitau, now a 35-year-old father of three, knew his path was more or less destined since he found a Manchester University prospectus in a filthy Mathare skip years ago and began dreaming about making his life better.

Now, armed with the knowledge he's garnered over the last year of study, and the wealth of contacts he's made, he's ready to return to Nairobi and expand the projects he's run there for the past decade, helping people as lost as he once was.

"When I was 13 or 14, I never imagined I would be in this sort of situation. All I used to think about was how I was going to die," said Gitau as he talked through the strange twists and turns his life has taken.

"Getting a master's degree has been really exciting and really demanding for me -- it's a dream come true. And I know how much it will mean for the projects I have in Kenya."

FROM DRUGS TO DEGREE