Family Moments!
Join me in congratulating my sister Esther Mazira for graduating yesterday at the Kenyatta University. She holds Bachelor of Commerce (Finance), Second class honours (upper division).
It might look normal to some people to graduate but this is indeed a special day to be remembered and to be celebrated in our family being the first degree.
Esther is our last born in a family of eight siblings, it has been a journey that my family can relate with especially struggling with school fees, joblessness stories, food and shelter living in Mathare North 'plot 10' where we lived for more than 16 years.
No one knew that one day one of us would make it this far in achieving academic excellence excellence.
In a nutshell, we were born in a family of 8 siblings and majority of us struggled with secondary education due to lack of school fees and general livelihood. Even though my late dad and mum tried their level best not everyone reached the levels we had aspired to reach and to make the matters worse my late dad lost his job leaving us without any hope of pursuing further education.
At around the year 2003, that is after the death of my mum my dad decided to travel upcountry (village) to try something new that could offer us the very basic especially food and shelter because life in the city of Nairobi was becoming unbearable.
We were left behind in the city because even in the upcountry / village we didn't have something that could sustain the entire family which meant transiting the entire family upcountry couldn't solve anything but even could make the situation even worse considering that we were all raised in the city.
To cut the long story short, I was determined to guide, train and mentor my young siblings all through their secondary education partly paying their school fees.
So today, I feel really happy as a guardian to have help Esther and others to at least achieve part of their desired dreams.
Quote;
" Every hurdle that present itself comes with an invisible handle to cling on to make it to the other side." - Wilson Masaka, Youth Advocate and Social Entrepreneur.
Family Values
I can attribute our success to working together as a family especially during tough times, discipline, prayers, sacrifice, volutnteership, compassion, role modeling and football.
Career
Currently Esther works at Salix and she is a co-founder at Wilsen Initiative leading the She Can - I am sHERO whose ideas is derived from her personal journey coming from a humble family living in the underserved communities but she is still determined to Do More, Be More and Be Different towards achieving her meaning of success.
I am a sHERO seeks to inspire girls living in the underserved communities to pursue their dreams no matter the challenges they might face which at large extent can be managed if one is focused, patient, determined, connects with the right networks and knows what they want.
Once again a big congratulations my sister Esther you have made us proud. I was the first one to board a plane to Norway but you have set the new record as the first one to get a degree in our great family.
May God give you wisdom, knowledge and more life to achieve more that you desire in life.
To our late Dad and Mum wherever you are just note in all our past struggles one of us made it to the university successfully.
Thanks you all for supporting Esther's journey this far especially my family and Digital Divide Data (DDD) for your life transforming programs that enables youth like Esther from underserved communities to gain work experience and pursue their higher education after secondary school.
Esther's story is a model that mirrors what we seek to achieve with many other girl's living in the underserved communities through the She Can, I am sHERO.
Her story of resilience, knowledge, volutnteership, vision, passion, talent, commitment, career, values, love for education, life exposure, attitude, skills etc
is what inspired me to think how we can inculcate the same or even more to girls from underserved communities.
Her great combination of football, community service, education and work is rare in a community where girls are vulnerable to many issues that would hinder them from achieving their dreams.
