Life has an uncanny way of signifying the most unlikely event. Such is the inspirational story of a Kenyan who was born out of wedlock in rural Kenya, the firstborn son of a 15 year-old girl. The mother was ostracised for bringing into the family an “uninvited guest,” one who would in the fullness of time demand a piece of ancestral land. Confronted with this unbearable situation, the teenage mother decided to elope with another young man, and together they left the village to seek for greener pastures in the city, leaving behind her two-year old baby with the grandmother.
In Nairobi, its Kibera slums that beckoned. At three, following the death of his grandmother, little boy Kennedy Odede, was picked by his mother from the village and brought to Kibera. This is where the boy was raised. Kennedy Odede, author of Find Me Unafraid, his memoir, which he co-authored with his wife Jessica Posner, tells the story of Kibera slums like no other writer has. The reader can touch the coarse texture of Kibera and feel its scales, the horror, the hopelessness, and the resilience, too. Here people love, care and hate. The title of the book is a metaphor for the spirit of human resilience. It is taken from a poem Kennedy says, that Nelson Mandela, one of his influences, introduced to him.
Here is the first stanza of William Ernest Henley’s poem, Invictus:
Find Me Unafraid is the memoir of a young Kenyan who survived the harsh conditions of slum and street life, to bring the story of the city’s underprivileged families, to the world. “In our Kibera neighbourhood, it was easy to know if people had food or not. You had to light your charcoal stove, a jiko, outside in the open air for the charcoals to catch fire. If you did not bring your stove outside to cook, you showed the neighbourhood the depth of your suffering,” writes Odede. In Kibera, there’s social stratification. There’s the poor, and there’re the poor of the poor. Odede’s family belonged to the lowest stratum, a family where biting poverty had secured an abode. The Odede’s slept hungry. The saving grace for little Odede came from a childhood friend next door whose mother loathed Odede’s family. Yet the boy did not mind his mother’s wrath. Often time, he sneaked morsels for his best friend. “Here,’ ‘said a voice, as an outstretched arm appeared offering a precious piece of bread.” Such was Odede’s childhood in the slums, deprived. Sometimes Odede would go to a parish for rations.
When in 2004, Tanzanian-born diplomat Anna Tibaijuka was appointed Executive Director of UN-Habitat, she came up with the grand Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme, a joint project undertaken by the Kenya government and the United Nations. The aim was to address the harsh realities of slum life. After all, UN-Habitat is headquartered in Nairobi, and therefore it was only prudent that the UN agency pilots this programme in Kenya before taking it to the rest of the world. “Until then,” wrote journalist Rasna Warah, “few organisations, except charities and NGOs, paid much attention to the sprawling Kibera slums, where mud and tin shacks are stacked together like sardines.”
In the slums, people are overcrowded, families share tiny ramshackles, piped water, electricity or proper sanitation are hard to come by. Here, flying bullets, stray or otherwise, are a part of life, and the threat of disease outbreaks and death, sits inside and outside these tenements, ominously.
Find Me Unafraid is the story of a former slum kid and street boy who escaped the brutality of that harsh life and lived to tell the story as Colombian Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez might have said in his memoir, Living to Tell the Tale. Odede’s is an evocative memoir. It is heartrending. It is “raw” as Odede told me in an interview on The Books Café. As the reader roams through the pages of this memoir, he is reminded that life in the slum is indeed brutal and short. Most of Odede’s childhood friends, did not survive teenage: they perished, including the boy who used to sneak bread him.
Odede survived mob justice for “stealing” a mango from a Mama Mboga. This struggling woman only needed to shout, mwizi, thief, and the poor boy was cornered by a hungry and angry mob! A Catholic priest saved Odede by paying for the mango and went ahead to do some shopping for the family. Once when the boy was 10 and could no longer stand the terror of his alcoholic stepfather, daily beatings, and the poverty that surrounded his family in the slums, he escaped to try a new life on the streets of Nairobi. There, he was welcomed with a thorough beating because the street families could not trust him. They suspected he had been sent as an informer. An older boy who had earlier left Kibera slums for street life, and had been integrated, is the one who came to his rescue. But that was just the beginning of his troubles on the streets. Street families do not just wait for alms from well-wishers; the boys and girls on the street risk their lives every day, to provide for these families. It is the brutality of this life that pushes the street boy to criminal activities.
“If a street boy comes to you, and asks for Ksh.20, who are you to judge and decide for him that he needs food? Give him the 20 shillings and let him use it the way he wants,” Odede told me in an interview. The street boy dares death every day. If he snatches a purse, if he gets away with a side mirror, a car stereo, or comes to you wielding a knife asking for something, he is ready to die, to be shot or by mob justice. Survival surprises the street boy! To him, the smartly dressed represent the bourgeoisie. Kennedy lived in Kibera slums for 23 years. It was through the daring and loving charm of a young American student, Jessica Posner, that Odede was admitted to an American university without having gone through formal education. One of his professors, hearing his remarkable story, encouraged him to enroll in a memoir writing class. And there, Find Me Unafraid, was born. Odede’s story is not only heartrending, and redemptive, it is a powerful romance story.
Odede is the founder and executive director of SHOFCO (shining hope for communities), the transformative grassroots organisation he founded with fellow slum youth to change lives. For he does not wish any child to go through what he experienced growing up in Kibera.
Kennedy Odede is the recipient of several global and local awards, including a Kenya Presidential Commendation. He was named 2024 TIME 100 Most Influential People and in 2023 he was named TIME 100 Impact Africa Award. Odede is the winner of the 2025 United Nations Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize for his outstanding community work, and as a transformative leader. Odede will be awarded on 18 July 2025 at the annual commemoration of the UN General Assembly Nelson Mandela International Day in New York. Kennedy Odede’s is an inspiring story: A boy who grew up in Kibera slums is today one of the most influential young leaders in the world, touching lives and transforming communities.
Khainga O’Okwemba is the Presenter and Producer of The Books Café on KBC English Service.
