A teenage boy living on the streets of Kenya's capital, Nairobi, Friday was presented with a check for $5,000, after unwittingly winning a treasure hunt sponsored by a Nairobi radio station.
Seventeen-year-old Evans Kamande, who had been living on Nairobi's streets for five years, beamed as he and his mother received the $5,000 check from a Nairobi radio station.
Nairobi residents had been searching all over the city for a little gold box containing a piece of paper from KISS 100 FM radio station that would entitle the finder to a $5,000 prize.
The station's head of marketing, Amar Vipyarthi, tells VOA the barely literate boy was really lucky.
"He'd gone to answer a call of nature, and happened to look up into the tree next to which he was standing and saw this little container," said Amar Vipyarthi. "He had some painkillers, which he'd been taking for a cold he had, and he wanted to put them into this container to keep them dry. So when he took down the container and opened it, he found this voucher, and realized that he'd won the prize to a competition he didn't even know had been happening."
Mr. Vipyarthi said Evans did not know at first that he won the prize. A student who was also looking for the same box read the slip of paper and explained to the boy that he won the competition. The student then drove the boy to the radio station.
Evans says he plans to use the money to buy some land with his mother and build rental housing on it.
Mr. Vipyarthi explains how Evans and his mother intend to go about making their dream a reality.
"Standard Chartered Bank, who are our co-sponsors of the treasure hunt with us, and who actually provided the prize money, are setting him up with a bank account and a financial advisor to help him make those decisions, and I believe he has his first meeting with his financial advisor next week," he said.
Mr. Vipyarthi says Evans and his mother are determined to make their rental housing project a success.