As we Graduate....

UNIVERSITY OF POTSDAM
MASTER OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT 2012 GRADUATION CEREMONY

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Speech on behalf of the Graduating Class

By

Abraham Rugo Muriu

Distinguished guests and my fellow graduands, it is my pleasure to share this moment with you. First of all I congratulate you for making to this day, we have all worked hard and today marks a great day in our lives. It is 1 year since we set foot in this university seeking to better our knowledge, skills and attitudes in public management. Then we were like the blindfolded persons who had came into contact with the proverbial elephant. Some of us thought public management was as rough as the skin of the elephant, others as smooth as its tasks, others as a heavy and rough a blanket as its wide ears and still others as a firm trunk as the elephants legs. But today, we have, thanks to our very able professors and supporting faculty, have a feel of these different aspects of the elephant. My fellow speaker has ably elaborated the experiences we have heard both in and out of the seminar rooms.

We will remain forever grateful to the MPM office for all you have done. Long before we arrived in Potsdam, you kept us informed and helped us prepare. Georg received us and showed us the city, Tjorven and later Felix ensured all logistics and paper work we needed was done, and Martina never rested until we had filled the last course form correctly. Dr. Gebhardt and Ms. Carboni not only ensured the programme run well but also kept encouraging us and gave us an ear whenever we needed one. Ms. Carboni brightened us with her constant smile even when she had all reasons to be angry at us. What you have done and been to us will remain etched in our hearts and professional foundation.

Our professors and their supporting faculty have taught us with all dedication possible. Each course was well organized and delivered. You patiently listened to us share our experiences of our feel of the “Public Management Elephant” and helped us see and feel the other side of the elephant. You managed our cultural and other differences and worked to bring the best out of us. You taught us that with hard work and discipline one can achieve great results. We thank you for every effort.

Our supporters, Family, DAAD, GIZ, governments, just to mention but a few, it’s your support that has seen us successfully complete this programme. For this we thank you. Our family and friends for all the encouragement and support, we thank you. You cheered us when we were flying high and supported us when we were crawling. All in an effort to make sure we kept moving forward.

Unto my fellow graduands. For 12 months, we have spent time together studying and sharing experiences. Sometimes we agreed, other times we disagreed but at all times we remained together in the MPM boat. We have remained stronger and better together. Our representatives, Jing jing and Ganimeti, we thank you for never tiring in listening and taking our concerns to the appropriate table of decisions. To each of us, I thank you for making effort to make the class enjoyable. Today we can proudly say that we are better, enlightened and wiser than when we first came. We came with little and now we are loaded with much. We came expecting to receive and now we leave to face a world that expects to receive from us. We came to get and now we go out to give.  Our graduation marks the end of our studies here and the beginning of a new life. A new life of seeking to apply what we have learnt.  A new life of greater and wiser engagement in the public sector.

Our guests today represent all those who impacted our lives during this one year. The support, lessons, insights, knowledge and guidance that they gave us was their lifetime gift to us. Our gift back to them, I suggest, is to serve humanity without fear or favour. To serve out of a clear conscience, and not just serving to clear our conscience. To make it our personal and collective responsibility to build our part of the world towards prosperity. To serve with our eyes on a better future and our hands on today’s labour. To advance the course of justice to the extent possible and relieve humanity of the pains that abound. This calls us to be firm at work and clear in our mind. It calls us to do the right even when it may be unpopular to do so. And knowing us all, I have no doubt in my mind that this is something we can do. While none of us will manage to change everything, everywhere; let’s make it our aim to change something, somewhere. Let us make it our aim to leave a legacy wherever our career road will take us. And when all is said and done, let there be much done than said.

Danke, Danke, Danke Sehr and God Bless You All.

In Service to God and Our Country

Abraham Rugo Muriu