This archive report was first published on 11 November 2019.
A Mother's Resilience: From Streets to Hope ¶
Rebecca Atieno, a 20-year-old woman, delivered her baby on her own at Uhuru Park in March, but her story is one of hope and resilience.
Published on November 11, 2019, in Saturday Magazine, Rebecca's story highlights the challenges she faced as a young woman, from a difficult childhood to living on the streets.
Rebecca was born to a second wife in a family in Ahero, Kisumu, 20 years ago. She felt unwanted growing up, and things took a turn for the worse when her mother died suddenly in 2014 and her father stopped paying her school fees.
After her father's death in 2017, Rebecca moved to Nairobi, where she lived on the streets for a month, sleeping in corridors and scavenging for food at Muthurwa Market. It was during this time that she discovered she was pregnant.
Rebecca eventually found a job as a waitress in a makeshift hotel, where she earned Sh300 per day. However, when the hotel was demolished, she lost her job and had to move to a boarding house at Muthurwa Market.
On the morning of March 12, Rebecca was laid off from her job and decided to go to Uhuru Park to rest and think. It was there that she delivered her daughter, Hope, in a ditch, using a phone's SIM card plate to cut the umbilical cord.
Rebecca was taken to Kenyatta Hospital, where she met Christine Nkatha, a kind-hearted woman who took her and her daughter in and has been caring for them since.
Rebecca is now stronger and wants to work and stand on her own feet. However, she is waiting for her ID, which she applied for two months ago, to be processed.
She hopes to go back to school to study cosmetology and eventually get a job. The future looks brighter for Rebecca, and she remains hopeful that she will one day get married and build a better life for herself and her daughter.
