From Kibera to medical school: resilience amid poverty

Dr Stellah Bosire during the interview on March 20, 2015 at Nation Centre. PHOTO | JENNIFER MUIRURI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Stellah Bosire-Otieno grew up in Kibera slums. Theirs was a needy family. Out of desperation, she used and peddled drugs.
  • She hopes that her story will encourage a young girl somewhere, who is going through what she did.
  • Today, Stellah is a wife, a mother and a doctor with Avenue Healthcare, where she is also a manager.

There is nothing about Dr Stellah Bosire-Otieno that hints at the traumatic childhood she endured.

She is a picture of happiness, success and contentment, her firm handshake exuding confidence. Hers is an extraordinary, inspiring story of resilience and courage in the face of abject poverty, sexual abuse and drug addiction.

The beginning

Stellah was born in Gatwekera, Kibera, 29 years ago, and is the second-born in a family of five children. Her father, who did not care about them, physically and verbally abused her late mother, Alice Nyambura.

“Half the time, my father was not there, so my mother raised us by herself,” says Stellah.

Her mother also had a “mysterious” illness that saw her go in and out of local clinics. She would also sometimes behave in ways that disturbed Stellah and her siblings.

Stellah Bosire (left) with her sister Ann (right) and the shopkeeper Mwangi (centre). PHOTO | COURTESY

For example, she would use their house as a toilet, and would lose her temper if any of them moved the plastic containers she used to do her deed in. Her mother would also often have conversations with imaginary people.

It wasn’t until Stellah joined medical school, many years later, that she realised that her mother’s strange behaviour was actually depression and schizophrenia.

 “She would lapse in and out of depression, and this made us vulnerable to to all manner of abuse, since she was not able to protect us or provide for us during her relapses.

When I was in Class Four for instance, a male relative sexually abused me. He told me that he would hurt my mum if I told anyone what he was doing to me. I could not bear the thought of him hurting her, so I kept quiet,” she says.

Stellah Bosire at Gatwekera in Kibera in an undated photo. PHOTO | COURTESY

Out of school

“When I was in Class Five, I dropped out of school since mum could not afford school fees, and together with my siblings, roamed the streets begging for food…that is how we survived.”

They would also collect discarded plastic bottles and sell them. It was after such a mission one day that Stellah was gang raped. She still remembers the face of one of them. After that incident, she says, she lost her childhood innocence for good.

It was about this time that she started smoking bhang, perhaps to cope with her disillusionment.

“In the ghetto, you could get your fix for as little as five shillings,” she says.

Her father, who had not been playing an active role in their lives at the time, showed up and took them back to school after being taunted by neighbours and friends about letting his children live in the streets.

 “The school I had studied in from Class One to five, Kibera Primary School, refused to take me back. I was on drugs and they knew it. I was also very volatile, would fight a lot and was verbally abusive,” she explains.

Stellah Bosire (right) with her sister in Gatwekera. PHOTO | COURTESY

She eventually got admitted to Joseph Kang’ethe Primary School, where she met one of the people that would be influential in turning her life around.

“Mr Yusuf, my mathematics teacher, emphasised the need for education. He taught me maths by force, and no matter how many times I missed school, he did not give up on me. He would look at me and tell me that I was “100 per cent material. Not 80 per cent, not 90 per cent, but 100 per cent,” she recalls with a fond smile.

Her drug use, however, did not stop, and she was expelled in Class Eight, first term, when one of her teachers discovered  bhang in her bag.

“I was peddling drugs, and would have sold the confiscated stash for a mere Sh100, instead, I got expelled from school.”

Her life went downhill from there, and she started taking alcohol - Muratina and Chang’aa, which were cheap and easily available in her neighbourhood. Together with five other girls, they rented a house in Gatwekera, where they did whatever they wanted.

Interestingly, it is the “gang leader” who encouraged her to sit for her KCPE examination. She even offered to pay her to go to school. Stellah eventually caved in to the pressure and decided to do the exams, since she had already registered for them.

Excellent performance

“I did the exams in a secluded room, a policeman on guard – I was not allowed to mingle with the rest. Our gang leader had bought me a mathematical set, but the pencil was blunt, and I had no sharpener, so I had to keep biting the edges of the pencil and rubbing it on the floor to sharpen it,” she laughs at a memory she now finds amusing.

Stellah scored 516 out of a possible 700 marks, her highest score in maths.

Dr Stellah Bosire (right) with her colleagues while in medical school. PHOTO | COURTESY

When her father heard that she had passed her exams, he came back into her life and took her to secondary school.

“One of my primary school teachers, Mrs Wahome, bought me my school uniform, and I joined State House Girls. My father and I walked all the way from home to school. He paid half of that term's fees, but never paid a single cent after that.

Culture shock

State House girls opened a world that had previously been unknown to her.

“I was from hell, this was my heaven. We ate so well, that I would put on weight during the school term, only to lose it all when I went back home for the holidays.”

Some of her teachers knew about her poor background and would give her sanitary towels and pocket money once in a while. Though comfortable at school, she worried about her mother and siblings, and decided to start a “business” of washing her schoolmate’s clothes for Sh100 a bucket. She would then give the watchman, who knew where she lived, what she made weekly, to take home.

But all was not well because Stellah was often sent away from school due to lack of fees. Frustrated, she one day packed her belongings and walked to the principal’s office and told her she wanted to leave so that she could look for money, because no matter how many times they sent her away, her family was never going to afford it.

A shocked Mrs Ndegwa asked to see her academic reports, and realising that she was a bright student, put her on a bursary programme. The only condition was that Stellah’s family would pay Sh5000 every year.

Life as a house girl

She went back home to Gatwekera after her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams and got a house girl’s job in Lang’ata, paying Sh3,500. This turned out to be the much-needed breakthrough she kept dreaming of.

“My employer’s children were weak in maths, so I would help them with it. Their maths grades improved so much, that it caught the attention of the teachers, who asked their mother what she was doing differently.”

Stellah Bosire (right) with her brother John. PHOTO | COURTESY

Her employer, Mama Brian, put two and two together and realised that there could be much more to the house girl she had employed than met the eye.

“She sat me down and quizzed me about my past, including where I went to school.”

When Stellah told her how well she had performed in KCSE, and that she was an alumni of State House Girls, she asked her to go home and bring her certificates. When she saw them, she broke down in tears and told her she could no longer employ her, since it would be unfair to do so.

“She promised me that she would find me something better to do, gave me five thousand shillings, and asked me to go back home, which I did,” she says.

Not long after this, she got a call from Mama Brian, who worked with an NGO at the time.

"A journalist from Italy was doing a documentary on HIV/Aids and orphans in Kibera, and she requested me to show her around Kibera and introduce her to those infected and affected by the disease," she says.

She jumped at the opportunity, buoyed by the fact that she would earn Sh1,000 a day, which would enable her to continue supporting her family.

“That kind of money to just talk and take someone around the slums was like manna from heaven for me,” she says.

The journalist would also buy her a meal every day after the shoot. One day, the camera turned on her.

Dr Stellah Bosire on her graduation day. PHOTO | COURTESY

“What is your story?” the journalist asked her, after realising how knowledgeable Stellah was on matters to do with HIV/Aids and the social issues surrounding it.

And talk she did. She opened up to the journalist about her predicaments as a young girl growing up in Kibera. Talking, Stellah says, has always been therapeutic for her. She talked of the poverty, sexual abuse and her mother’s illness. The journalist could not help weeping after she completed her story.

Her fortunes changed completely after this documentary, which was aired in Italy. She was flooded with requests from strangers who wanted to support her in her studies, others even offering to host her.

“The attention was overwhelming. I was offered a full scholarship to a University in Italy and accommodation, but I had to turn down the offer because I was my family’s breadwinner and I could not leave my mum, since her sickness had worsened, and she was in and out of hospital. I asked them to help me from here.”

These well-wishers wanted to assist the women and children in the documentary as well, and through Stellah, they helped them to start income generating projects.

The Italian journalist then introduced Stellah to the Levi-Montalcini Foundation. The foundation was established by Nobel laureate Rita Levi Montalcini, an Italian, and is committed to the education of African girls and young women.

She applied for the scholarship, and was invited to live and study medicine in Italy.

As fate would have it, one of the board members of the foundation, Catarina Bogna, knew a Kenyan professor, Nilesh Patel, who worked in the department of Medical Physiology at the University of Nairobi, and mentioned to him that a girl from Kibera was going to Italy to study medicine.

“Why can’t she come to the University of Nairobi?” posed the professor. Stellah had never thought of applying to a local university, and considered it a better prospect because of the family responsibilities she had.

The professor’s wife, Diana Patel, who was the managing director at Avenue Healthcare, asked to see Stellah, and together with the general manager of operations, Ettah Ligale, they offered her and her entire family medical covers, and a job for her as a filing clerk to boot.

The two women influenced and mentored her as she studied medicine at the University of Nairobi, and continue to do so to date.

Lost her mother

Stellah lost her mother to Aids-related complications during her final year of study, in 2011.

“I got her the best care possible thanks to my colleagues at Kenyatta National Hospital, but when I was just about to sit for my final exams, she slipped into a coma and died. She had TB menengitis,” she explains.

When word got round that she had lost her mum, her colleagues rallied behind her and contributed enough money to help her bury her mother like a queen.

Even though her future certainly looked bright, her world caved in after she laid her mother to rest.

“That year was a very hard one for me, but two of my best friends, Dr Angela Nyamu and Dr Catherine Kwamboka walked me through the journey, and with their help, I pulled through.”

Giving back

Her mother’s death fuelled her passion for HIV/AIDS, and upon graduation with a Bachelor of Medicine in Surgery, in 2012, she involved herself in mentorship, HIV and counseling. She used a chunk of her salary to start income generating projects for women affected or infected with HIV/AIDS, as well as victims of sexual abuse.

Today, Stellah is a doctor with Avenue Healthcare, where she is also a manager. She is also a board member of the HIV/Aids tribunal and works closely with the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB).

Dr. Stellah Bosire during the interview at Nation Centre on March 20, 2015. PHOTO | JENNIFER MUIRURI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

As part of giving back, Stellah has started what she calls “Street Healing Programme” through which, every alternate weekend, she walks around the central business district, Ngara and Gikomba areas, with her medical bag, in search of homeless people who might need treatment of common ailments, cleaning of wounds or common vaccines.

Peace at last

All her siblings, she says, are in a good place. One of her sisters is a teacher, another one a nurse, and her last-born brother is a student at Strathmore University on a full scholarship.

Stellah is married to John Austin Otieno, with whom she has a twelve-month old son, Tory James Otieno.

Dr Stellah Bosire with her son Tory James Otieno. PHOTO | COURTESY

“My husband sat me down one day after three years of friendship and told me, “You are going to be my wife”. It seemed more like an order, really. I laughed then, because it seemed so ridiculous that someone could love me with all my baggage. He later on proposed ‘properly’ on Skype while studying abroad. Look at me now. I have a man who loves me and a handsome, healthy boy,” she says, a big smile on her face.

Dr Stellah Bosire and her husband Austin Otieno. PHOTO | COURTESY

Stellah credits God, hard work, resilience and mentorship for her success.

“God has a way of refining someone. I liken my story to the mining and processing of diamonds. You have to dig deep and get dirty to find unrefined metal. You never think of the process diamonds went through when you see them on display. I am that diamond.”