Born and raised in the harsh Turkana desert, Francis Kooli is changing the brutal image of police one step at a time.
He wants the police to have a humane face.
Kooli is currently Bungoma county police commander.
The soft-spoken cop, whose love for music and dance is unmatched, engages in charity work.
He says he does charity work to help himself heal from the many difficult situations he has gone through while executing his job as a cop.
He wants the community to see police officers as human beings and their work is not always arrests.
He won an award in 2011 for being the country’s best blood donation mobiliser of the year.
“I received this award after a trekking for over 250km blood donation walk, where we realised 2,683 pints of blood. We walked from Kakamega to Nakuru mobilising Kenyans to donate blood,” he said.
Kooli has donated blood 25 times in his lifetime.
Donating blood won’t cost you anything, just walk into any health facility near you to donate and save those in critical state and in dire need of blood.
“I have done charity work in all the counties that I have served in different capacities. I won’t stop returning my hand to the society. Even here in Bungoma I have many lined-up activities that I need to do for the purpose of supporting the community,” Kooli said.
Kooli has worked in Isiolo, Nakuru, Kakamega, Laikipia, Bomet, Migori, Kisii, Bungoma among other counties.
In Bungoma, Kooli told the Star he has started engaging the communities to donate blood and conserve the environment. He takes every available opportunity to tell the public that the police are not bad people and can help to save difficult situations.
He supports persons with disability in the community to get mobility instruments. In Bumula, he donated a wheelchair to a resident who was unable to raise money to purchase one.
Kooli said he will rally the police and environmental agencies in Bungoma county to plant trees in Mt Elgon with a target of increasing the forest cover.
He is scheduled to set up a police post at Chepkitale area in Mt Elgon to help offer security.
He was born and raised in Turkana, where he attended primary school before moving on for his secondary education.
After completing his college education in 1993, Kooli joined the police service first employed as an Administrative Police officer.
He stayed on as a police instructor for eleven years. He loves music, sports and fitness.
In 2003, Kooli was posted to Isiolo as the Inspector of Administration police where he started field operations.
Kooli considers himself lucky in the police service where he has received consecutive promotions within short periods.
“In 1993 I was employed as an AP, 1997 made a corporal, in 2000 was promoted to the rank of a sergeant and in 2002 an inspector of police,” Kooli said.
In 2007, Kooli was moved to Keringet in Nakuru and later redeployed to the district headquarters.
He was shortly after posted back to the AP training college for Rapid Deployment Unit training.
He was then posted to Transmara. It was while there that he realised he had something unique to offer to the community and started his volunteer work.
While in Transmara, Kooli was involved in conflict resolution activities where he trained about 60 Maasai elders on modern and traditional peace building strategies.
He the peace programmes he undertook enabled the Maasai to strengthen their mechanisms to mediate among themselves and understand their problems.
“Since the Maasai had leadership structures which they respected, I brought together the leadership skills from different clans and helped in solving conflicts, and that is how I succeeded in my time in Maasai land,” he said.
