Faith Makungu working as a house help/Courtesy
A girl from Soy in Lugari Sub-county in Kakamega County has narrated how she braved the ordeal after her father’s relatives evicted her mother and her siblings four months after her dad died in a grisly road accident in Yala River.
Faith Makungu, who is in her early 20s, said her paternal uncles accused her mother of being involved in the death of her father, kicked them out and inherited their land and house.
“My father was a truck driver but met his untimely death while on the busy Kakamega-Kisumu highway when his vehicle’s brakes failed and plunged into River Yala. He died on the spot,” Faith remembers.
By then a Form Three student, Faith was forced to drop out because her father was the family’s sole provider and her family rented a house. She and her mother, Justina Nduko, were forced to work as casual laborers to make ends meet.
Their misfortune would escalate when her immediate younger brother dropped out of school and the landlord locked them out due to accumulated rent arrears.
“My mum had no stable job as a housewife. We began providing cheap labor to put food on our family’s table and see my brothers continue with their studies. One year later, my immediate sibling dropped out of school due to lack of school fees. Due to rent arrears, the landlord removed the door from our rented room leaving us in the cold and desperate,” she narrated.
Connection to house help job in Lebanon
The hardship forced Faith to find a job as a house help in Lebanon. It’s her friend, Yvonne Vugutsa, who linked her up after a surprise call .
“It didn’t take long before we connected and I took the opportunity to explain to her the struggles me and my family were facing.
“The narration of my plight moved her and she promised to help in whichever possible way. Her priority was to try link me to a similar job she was doing through an agent that enabled her travel to Lebanon,” Makungu said.
She moved to Lebanon within seven months after talking to her friend. She didn’t inform even her mother of her plans.
She moved from home in 2021 to begin working and that’s when her family knew.
She worked for two months without pay before she was given her full salary in the fourth month.
“I sent three quarters of my salary back home. I instructed my mum to pay school fees for my two brothers who were still in school. I was earning averagely Sh35,000 per month,” she said.
She bought her brother who dropped out of school a motorbike out of her savings and opened a tailoring business for her mother and went on to purchase her a plot in Lugari.
Faith has now started building a three-bedroom house for her mother as part of the achievements she made in just three years of stepping out and facing the world.
Sam Oduor is the editor-in-chief at the Western Kenya Times who leverages the power of the Internet in telling stories that shape opinions.
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