When Saumu Mbuvi was a young girl, her father Sonko stayed in Nairobi to make a meager living, leaving Saumu to live with her mother in Malindi.
He was unable to be present for his daughter Saumu’s upbringing due to their living situations.
Saumu made sure to work hard and support his family, he said in an interview with SPM Buzz.
She remembered a specific incident when he visited her in Malindi and offered her Sh30,000.
“Even if he as so busy and he was. There is a time he came, and that time Mum was broke. He had come from a meeting in Mombasa.
He made sure he drove to Malindi he called me to go see him.
Akatoa I think that was the first time I ever saw so much money. Aliniiambia shika hii . Hii ni yako ya school fees na ya matumizi yako”
Sonko further gave his daughter some more cash.
“Alafu akaniambia na hii ununue simu .
Yani until people in that area thought I had come from stealing because life started changing now kutoka kwa hio it was a humble place where we lived.
I had never seen such an amount of money like that. Ni kama alikuwa amenipatia elfu thelathini hio wakati.”
She was grateful that despite being tired, he made time to see her.
She was ten years old then when he gave her that money.
“It was in 2005,”
Saumu told;
“He had just finished for four when he got me. He was 18 or 19. Alikuwa na dedication that he would do something better for his children, he did want us to grow up struggling as he did.”
As the first child, Saumu had it rough; “Kulikuwa na changa moto mingi but we never slept hungrily, we thank God.”
She praised him for making sacrifices for the family,
“We used to live in a makuti house in Malindi, it would rain inside, we were living according to our means. We thank God, God has been faithful to us”Saumu is the founder of the charity organization Pamoja We Can KE.
