Mwanjuma Kupka
Mwanjuma was born in 1969 into a middleclass home. Life was good until age 8, when she began to develop health problems that caused her to drop out of her schooling. She spent 5 years in a hospital until she was recovered enough to go back to school. When she was 16, her mother died and this was a terrible blow to her. Not only had she lost her loving mother, but she lost the only person who had looked after her interests. The culture demanded that women be submissive and silent and Mwanjuma was forced to marry a 45 year old man at the tender age of 17.
Mwanjuma delivered her first child a year later. Her husband was a headmaster at the Primary School, so life was comfortable for her. But it was not to last. In 1990 the most tragic moment of her life came when her husband committed suicide by poison. She was the second and youngest wife, which put her at the bottom of the totem pole in her culture. She was thrown out by the first wife, and was forced to return to her parents with only the clothes on her back and her little girl. Mwanjuma was determined not live a life of dependency so she looked for work in Mombasa. She found a job that allowed her to save 15 shillings per day (20 cents), but seven months into the job, she had to quit to give birth. She eventually married the father, but again as a second wife. Unfortunately, he left both wives to attend college and while there, divorced the first two that he had left behind in order to marry another he had met in school. Mwanjuma returned again to her parents and started a secondhand clothing business. Once again ill fortune came and the business was forced to close down when she was robbed on her way to Mombasa to purchase goods. She had no choice but to start again. This time good news arose from tragedy. Her youngest sister’s husband died in an accident and she had received 500 shillings. She lent the money to Mwanjuma to start a kerosene business. She was able to grow the business, and after two years paid her sister back 2000 shillings.
She was also able to save enough to buy an old two-roomed house for her small family. In 1998, she joined the Yehu Bank to get a loan to expand her business. She was elected as the centre chief and served faithfully until 2000. With her first 5000 shilling loan, she was able to expand her business to sell kerosene, coffee, soap, coconut oil and sugar. Her business has grown such that she is able to lease 5 acres of land, pay off her loans with ease and even continue to save. She can now afford to send her children to school and feed and cloth them. She has even renovated her home with two additional bedrooms and cement floors and a tin roof. She looks forward to her next loan which she will use to purchase a bicycle to distribute her goods and build a structure to store her goods. She is happy and hopeful and finally in control of her own destiny. What a great example she is to all of us.