The founder
Blessed To Transform is a registered organisation that was founded in the year 2016 in Korogocho slums by Madam Gladys Wanjiku who has a personal inspirational story behind the reason she started giving back in the slum.
Madam Gladys was a school drop-out back in her high school years due to lack of school fees.
Having been raised up by a single mom, who wasn’t financially stable, her family struggles were quite many hence, since her mother could not afford paying her school fees any more, Madam Gladys was forced to stay out of school for seven (7) good years.
During those 7 years, life was super hard on her and it lead her to doing many odd jobs like being employed as a house girl for two years, working as a mama mboga (selling groceries) in a place called Dandora among many others.
Being out of school for many years led her into a marriage that turned out to be very toxic and later failed and she got divorced and started battling life as a single mother of one beautiful girl called Abigael.
However, in all these struggles her desire to one day find a way to go back to high school stayed a live inside her heart and in the year 2008, she bounced back furiously and enrolled herself in a nearby day school. She joined form 2 at the age of 26 years with a little breast feeding baby.
She was actually agemates with some of her teachers.
Luckily she managed to go back to school because she had saved some money from her small grocery business, where she worked hard for one full year and managed to save Ksh.12,000/-(120USD) which she used to buy books, uniforms and pay small amount of school fees to be allowed to stay in school.
Later she almost went through another threatening dropping out of school due to lack of school fees again but thanks God, some angels came her way from Absa Bank of Kenya then it was Barclays Bank of Kenya and paid all her high school fees and bought her all revision books she needed plus paid her examination fee.
This made her life in school very comfortable to a point she passed her O levels exams so well. She got a grade (B-) and was called to join University of Nairobi where she graduated in the year 2014 with a second class upper B.A double major in Sociology and Peace Studies through a radio on-air fund raising. She later pursued her masters in counseling psychology at KCA University.
This major breakthrough in finishing her O level and joining campus made her vow before God one thing, that if she graduates and gets a good job she will want to support other needy kids she didn’t know because she felt that she as well was supported by so many people that never even bothered to know even her second name.
And this is how Blessed To Transform was birthed right in the heart of the slum back in the year 2016 to date.
Madam Gladys refers to her activities in the slum as “HER THANKSGIVING ALTER TO GOD” This is because God gave her the biggest Academic accomplishments she ever desired. This was like a big MIRACLE to her that needed to be celebrated daily as a thanks giving to God through her acts of charity in the slum.
This is actually the reason why she passionately does what she does for the poor and needy kids in the slum. Today her feeding center feeds over 500 kids daily with many of them benefiting from the education kitty through the support of other like-minded friends.
Madam Gladys believes in these three things
1. He who refreshes others shall themselves be refreshed by God (Proverbs:11:25)
2. If you cannot feed a hundred just feed one. (Saint Mother Teresa)
3. Helping one person might seem like just one drop in the ocean, but that one drop might forever be missing if that one person never got helped. (Saint Mother Teresa)
That is the incredible journey of the founder of this great organisation called BLESSED TO TRANSFORM that is currently operating in Korogocho slums but with a vision to spread wings into the 47 counties of Kenya and beyond.
