Eunice Mathu is the founder of Parents Magazine, a popular monthly magazine established in 1986 with focus on family and relationships.
In school, she excelled in Mathematics at school and aspired to study it further.
However, her intention to obtain a Bachelor of Commerce degree was dashed when she discovered the class was full.
Mathu was disappointed and enrolled in a BA course that she did not like.
During her admission, she revealed her situation to a woman who told her about a journalism program that provided a scholarship.
After graduating from university in 1975, Mathu worked as a writer for Nation Newspaper Limited, currently known as Nation Media Group.
She later joined Unilever, which became East African Industries, and established the communications department.
Mathu was in charge of creating a magazine for the company, a move that encouraged her to create her own magazine.
In 1981, she quit her job to create her own magazine.
Her supervisor assumed she was going because she was recently married, but she informed him otherwise.
After working as the communications manager for a consumer goods distribution company, Mathu founded Consumer’s Digest magazine.
After leaving Consumers Digest, she founded Parents Magazine in 1986. It took two years to come up with the name.
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As a young mother at the time, she was aware of the hardships that mothers faced. This motivated her to launch Parents Magazine in order to address these issues, among others.
Mathu’s other inspiration for starting Parents Magazine came from her job as an associate editor for the official journal of the United Nations Third World Conference on Women in 1985.
The Nairobi conference challenged her to talk more on women’s issues.
The magazine grew popular, and the first edition covered themes such as male infertility, pregnancy illness, preparing for delivery and toilet training.
They were also the first magazine to openly discuss sex, despite the discomfort associated with the subject at the time.
Mathu who was also the editor ofthe magazine believed there was nothing wrong with the topic, and that parents should discuss it with their children.
“As you grow up, your mother will guide you, and you will eventually understand what she was saying. So I decided that we should begin talking to our children about sex when they are little, because no one talked to me about sex when I was younger. If I heard anything, it was from peers and older pupils, which I believe is an incorrect method of gathering information,” she told The Standard in a previous interview.
Mathu is also the founder of Bodywise Fitness Centre and Stellan Consultancy Ltd.
