Stella Bosire is one of Kenya’s best medical practitioners, and on November 21, 2019, Queen Elizabeth II presented her with the Commonwealth Points of Light Award.
Unbeknownst to most, the acclaimed doctor was originally a street kid who not only abused drugs but also sold numerous narcotics.
Stella already told a compelling story about her travels in an interview.
“I grew up in Gatwekera, Kibera, and spent the majority of my childhood as a chokora (street kid) on the streets of Nairobi. My mother suffered from schizophrenia, and my father was away, so by the age of 11, I was responsible for feeding my siblings and caring for my mother. I ended up selling drugs just to keep our family fed during that period,” she explained.
Stella’s early recollections included her mother running around nude during her worst episodes, and she was regularly teased and labeled as the daughter of a madwoman.
She was forced to drop out of Kibra Primary School when she reached Class Five due to financial difficulties and the school’s inability to accommodate her drug-related lifestyle.
“In the slums, you could get your fix for as low as five shillings. Kibera Primary School, where I had studied from first to fifth grade, refused to accept me back. I was on narcotics, and they knew. I was also quite temperamental, fought frequently, and was verbally abusive,” she said.
Stella spent her teenage years fending for her family on the streets, collecting abandoned plastic bottles and selling them to city manufacturing enterprises.
She was eventually admitted to Joseph Kang’ethe Primary School, where she met a teacher who would play an important role in turning her life around.
“My maths instructor, Yusuf, highlighted the importance of education. He taught me math by force, and no matter how many times I missed school, he never gave up on me,” she said.
By this point, Stella had been subjected to the most horrific suffering imaginable, including gang rape.
The trauma was taking a toll on her young psyche, and she continued to use drugs heavily in order to escape her obviously hopeless life.
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When she reached Class Eight, Stella was expelled after a teacher discovered bhang in her luggage but in a twist of destiny, her street “gang leader” urged her to take the KCPE exam.
“I took the exams in a private room with a police officer on guard. I was not permitted to socialize with the others. Our gang leader had bought me a mathematical set,” she explained.
Stella eventually bowed into the pressure and took the exams, scoring 516 out of a potential 700 points.
“I located the school on a map and was directed to State House Girls High School. Yusuf provided me with a blouse and a man’s shirt, and they pooled funds to help me attend high school
“This was the first time I slept alone in a bed with my own bedding. I had breakfast, lunch and dinner that I did not work for,” she explained.
Stella began washing clothing for her fellow students for a fee and used to send the money home.
After her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education tests, she returned home to Gatwekera and took a housekeeping job in Lang’ata, where she earned Ksh 3,500 per month, despite being one of the top students.
Stella used to teach her employer’s (Mama Brian) children arithmetic while she wasn’t doing housework. The parents were impressed by their children’s outstanding development in the topic.
Mama Brian took Stella down one day and interrogated her about her background, and when she realized how well her housekeeper had done in KCSE, she became emotional and burst into tears.
“She promised me that she would find me something better to do, gave me Ksh 5,000, and asked me to go back home, which I did,” she noted.
Mama Brian, who worked for an NGO at the time, quickly called her and introduced her to an Italian journalist working on a documentary about HIV/AIDS and orphans in Kibera and had asked for a tour of the area.
One thing led to another, and the Italian urged her to share her story on tape.
The feature went viral in Italy, and her life was dramatically changed, with floods of potential sponsors requesting to support her university study in Italy.
Stella had to decline offers to leave for Europe because she couldn’t leave her family, but favor was pouring down on her, resulting in a full scholarship to study medicine at the University of Nairobi through the Levi-Montalcini Foundation, founded by Italian Nobel laureate Rita Levi Montalcini.
