In 1902, a boat docked at the Mombasa port with a crew and three American men. The Colonial administration was expecting them, so they had a smooth journey inland via train. The men, Arthur Chilson, Willis Hotchkiss, and Edgar Hole, were members of The Religious Society of Friends who lived by a doctrine derived from the First Epistle of Paul and had come to Kenya with the aim of spreading the Gospel and spearheading vocational training among the Africans.
The three landed in Port Florence (Kisumu) where they were received and welcomed by C. W. Hobley, the District Commissioner of the area. In August, one and a half months after their arrival, the missionaries spotted an unoccupied fertile area that they deemed perfect to set up their mission on. DC Hobley allocated 1,000 acres in Kaimosi – a township in present-day Vihiga County – to the missionaries where they soon built the Kaimosi Mission.
It was one thing to have the mission in mind, but there came challenges along the way. Formal, western education had yet to prove its value to Africans and the missionaries took on the task of establishing an educational institution where they would have literacy programs – ensuring the Africans could read and write in order to properly introduce them to the religious doctrine. In 1903, the three Americans opened the doors of the Friends African Industrial Mission where they would soon begin training locals. This venture would later be noted as the oldest formal school for Africans in Kenya.
By the following year, much had evolved, and the missionaries saw the need to diversify the learning programs within their institution. following basic literacy, carpentry and dressmaking were included in the school’s program and boys and girls of the area were invited to the school to learn. With this change, came another: the school’s name. Friends African Industrial Mission became Kaimosi Friends Elementary School.
Appreciation of the institution quickly spread by word of mouth contributing to its growth. In 1924, two intermediate schools were started and the girls and boys were separated. Much later, in 1949, both schools were improved to full primary schools, and finally, in 1958, the boy’s school was relocated to Busia County, within the Lugulu area, where it was renamed Kamusinga Friends School.
Over a century later, the Kaimosi Mission still stands, with high schools for both boys and girls, a training college as well as a Bible college, a special school for the mentally handicapped, a hospital, and a university that birthed a constituent college of Masinde Muliro University. from humble beginnings, a legacy learning was established that has served hundreds of thousands of Kenyans.