Amani Blossoms

04/10/2026

Part 2:
She left with her two daughters. They ended up on the streets.

When Priscilla finally left her first husband, she took her two girls with her. Going back to her father was hardly an option. He had repeatedly told her that a woman belonged with her husband, whatever the cost.

So for a time, Priscilla and her daughters lived on the streets.

I think about this whenever I hear someone ask why a woman in an abusive relationship doesn't simply leave. Priscilla did leave. Then she had to figure out where three people would sleep, how they would eat and how she would make money with very little education and no reliable support around her.

Eventually, she found work as a casual laborer. The work didn't give her much, but she finally had her own income. She also met a man. The man spoke about love, a home, security and a better life. After everything she had already been through, I can understand why she wanted to believe that perhaps life could be different with him.

They married and had a son. Then the violence started again. Priscilla left for the second time.

Years later, she settled in Mukuru kwa Reuben. By the time our paths crossed, she had four children, was expecting her fifth and was now in her third marriage. Sadly, that relationship had also become violent.

By then, nobody could say Priscilla had simply been unwilling to leave. She had left twice. What she had never really had was somewhere safe and stable to land when she did.

What happened in Part 3?

PS: If you want to join a group of professionals to create stronger circles of support around women facing violence, through your profession, skills, connections or time, you can join us here: https://lnkd.in/d-vZBgpg

03/10/2026

PRISCILLA'S STORY
Part 1

Her life was being decided for her before she was old enough to decide for herself

When I met Priscilla in 2023, she believed she was about 31. She was pregnant with her fifth child. She had been married 3 times, but when she told me her story, the part that I remember even more clearly was how young she was when all of this started.

Priscilla had only completed lower primary school when her father arranged her first marriage. She had no income and very little say over what was happening to her. Her husband controlled almost every part of her life and abused her physically, sexually, emotionally and financially. Some days he beat her because dinner was late. Other days, there seemed to be no reason at all.

Then she gave birth to her first child, a baby girl, and he beat her because she had not given him a son. I remember hearing that and thinking about just how much of Priscilla's life had already been taken out of her hands. Someone else decided when she would marry. Her husband decided how she would live. Then even the gender of the child she gave birth to became another reason to hurt her.

She later had a second daughter. Eventually, after one particularly brutal assault, Priscilla decided she could not stay. She took her two girls and left.

That was brave, but she was about to discover how hard leaving can be when you have children, very little money, and nowhere safe to go.

I'll share what happened next in Part 2.

PS: If you want to join a group of professionals to create stronger circles of support around women facing violence, through your profession, skills, connections or time, you can join us here: https://lnkd.in/d-vZBgpg

17/09/2026

Final part 5
The last time I saw Cecilia, her leg was bandaged!

Years passed.

Every now and then, I would see Cecilia. Once, her arm was injured. Another time, she had a black eye. There was often an explanation.

An accident. Something happened. Nothing to worry about. The last time I saw her, she was walking with a bandaged leg. She had also had a second child.

I still think about her, because Cecilia does not fit the picture many people have in their heads when they think about a woman trapped in an abusive relationship.

She went to university, built a career, earned an income and still, leaving was not simple. Education can give a woman options. Income can give her options, but neither automatically removes fear, coercion, attachment, shame, trauma, social pressure or the hope that the family she dreamed about can somehow still be saved.

That is why we have to stop looking for one type of woman when we talk about domestic violence. She may be your colleague. Your employee. Your doctor. Your teacher. Your friend. The woman everyone describes as strong and because everyone thinks she has everything under control, nobody asks what is happening when she goes home.

Cecilia is one of the reasons I have joined these other professionals in Kenya and beyond, to help women silently going through Gender-based violence.

Obviously, I cannot rewrite what happened to her, but I can refuse to let what I learned from standing beside her end with me. We need counsellors who can listen. Lawyers who can help women understand their options. Healthcare professionals who recognise what they may be seeing. HR professionals who understand that violence at home does not stay neatly outside the workplace.

People who understand money, housing, employment, referrals and other practical pieces that can make leaving possible, and we need ordinary people willing to remain present without judging the woman who is trying to survive.

So this final post is an invitation. If Cecilia’s story has made you think, “There is something I can offer,” please don’t leave that thought here on LinkedIn.

Tell us. Your expertise, time, connections or willingness to help may become part of the support another woman needs when she finally makes that call.

Join us here: https://lnkd.in/d-vZBgpg

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13/09/2026

Part 4
Three months after I took Cecilia in, she packed her bags and went back

“I’m going back.”

I asked Cecilia why. Her answer was simple. “He is my husband. I am the only one who can fight for my marriage.” I did not agree with her decision, but I helped my friend pack.

Then I watched her leave. For years, I struggled with that moment. Why go back after everything that had happened? Why return after getting out? Working with survivors has forced me to look at that question differently.

We often talk about leaving as though a woman is standing beside an open door and simply refusing to walk through it, but look at everything standing in that doorway with her.

Her children. Her memories of the person she first loved. Her fear of starting again. Her hope that this time he might actually change. What family members will say. What her church or community may say. The embarrassment of telling people she went back after they helped her leave.

Sometimes, experiences from much earlier in her life that make the thought of another abandonment unbearable.

There is also a message women hear far too often: Fight for your marriage. Be patient. Think about your children. Don’t give up too easily.

We praise women for enduring. Then act surprised when some of them endure things no human being should have to survive.

Cecilia taught me something I wish I had understood better then: Supporting a survivor cannot depend on her making every decision we think she should make. Sometimes support means keeping a door open. So if she needs you again, shame is not the thing waiting for her on the other side.

In the final part, I’ll tell you about the last time I saw Cecilia and why her story still sits at the heart of the volunteering work I am doing with other professionals who care about these kinds of issues.

If you want to help us make sure more women have somewhere or someone to turn to, we would like to connect with you. Get connected by clicking here > https://lnkd.in/d-vZBgpg

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04/09/2026

Part 3
My friend… please come.”

Content note: This post contains descriptions of domestic violence and a threat with a weapon.

I still remember Cecilia’s phone call. She was crying. “My friend… please come.” I went to her home, and that was when I learned what had happened. Her boyfriend had locked her inside a closet.

He had threatened her with a machete if she tried to leave him. She managed to call me while he was away. There are moments when there is no grand plan. You simply do the next thing that needs to be done.

I took Cecilia, her child and their nanny, and all three moved into my small apartment. They stayed with me for three months. For those three months, I thought: she is out.

She is safe. Perhaps this is finally over. I was wrong. One day, Cecilia came to me and said: “I’m going back.” I could hardly believe what I was hearing. After the disappearances, the other women, the beatings and after being locked inside a closet and having her life threatened.

She was going back. There was a time when this part of Cecilia’s story confused me more than almost anything else. Today it doesn’t, because perhaps one of the biggest mistakes we make when talking about domestic violence is assuming that reaching safety automatically makes everything else simple.

It doesn’t erase the attachment, the children, the fear, the years of hoping things will become different, and it certainly doesn’t erase the pressure many women have absorbed about what it means to be a “good wife” or to keep a family together.

In Part 4, I’ll tell you what Cecilia said to me before she packed her things and left my apartment.

It is a sentence I have never forgotten, and if you are the kind of person a woman could call on a day like Cecilia called me- a counsellor, lawyer, healthcare professional, HR practitioner, financial expert, mentor, friend or someone willing to help- we would like to hear from you.

Speak up here > https://lnkd.in/d-vZBgpg


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As a registered non-profit organization in Kenya, we are inspiring a thriving beginning with domestic violence survivors.

31/08/2026

Part 2
She kept waiting for the man she first met to come back

Cecilia knew he was hurting her.

She also remembered who he had been before he started hurting her. As the relationship deteriorated, the disappearances became more frequent. So did the infidelity. And so did the violence.

Still, Cecilia kept trying to hold the family together. I watched her plead with him to come home. I watched her hope another conversation might change something.

I watched her give another chance, and then another. From the outside, it can look incomprehensible, but Cecilia was not choosing abuse. She was holding onto the possibility that the person she loved was still somewhere inside the person hurting her and there was something else.

Leaving would mean confronting one of the things she feared deeply: another family breaking apart. Years later, working with women through, the professional network I mentioned in Part 1, has changed how I understand stories like hers.

A woman can know something is dangerous and still hope it will change. She can have an education and still be emotionally trapped. She can earn money and still be afraid. She can know what she would tell another woman to do and still struggle to do it herself. That should change the way we respond to survivors. Sometimes the person who needs your help will not make the decision you desperately want her to make.

What happens then?

Do we become frustrated with her? Do we disappear? Or do we remain a safe person she can call when she is ready? I had no idea then just how important that question would become.

Because one day, Cecilia called me. She was crying. That phone call is Part 3.

If you want to join a group of professionals to create stronger circles of support around women facing violence, through your profession, skills, connections or time, you can join us here: https://lnkd.in/d-vZBgpg

As a registered non-profit organization in Kenya, we are inspiring a thriving beginning with domestic violence survivors.

26/08/2026

WHY DIDN’T SHE LEAVE?
The Story We Need to Understand.

Whenever someone asks, “Why didn’t she just leave?”, I think of my friend Cecilia.

She met him in her first year at university.

He was charming, confident and a few years ahead of her. They were young. They were in love. They talked about the kind of future young couples talk about when life still seems wide open.

By their second year together, Cecilia was pregnant. University became harder. There were lectures and exams, a new baby, very little money and a boyfriend without stable work. They moved into a small bedsitter and started building a home with what they had.

And for a while, they were happy. Then he started staying away. One night became two. Sometimes several days would pass before he came home. When Cecilia asked where he had been, she increasingly got anger instead of an answer.

Then the anger became violence. She later discovered other women. Some were students at their university, but Cecilia did not look at the relationship and see only the man hurting her.

She could still see the man she had fallen in love with. She could see their child. She could see the family she had hoped to build, and because she had experienced abandonment earlier in her life, walking away carried its own pain.

This is the part we sometimes miss when we ask, “Why didn’t she leave?” By the time abuse becomes visible to the rest of us, a woman may already be carrying years of love, history, fear, children, promises and hope.

Cecilia’s story got much worse.

In Part 2, I’ll tell you what happened as the violence became part of her everyday life, and as I share her story, I want to do more than make people feel sad.

I am excited to share that a group of professionals I joined recently wants to fix this at the roots, and we want to bring together people willing to help women facing violence with practical support, expertise, connections, and care.

If you want to be one of those people, tell us here: https://lnkd.in/dpv5CAQW



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08/03/2026

Today, we celebrate the strength, courage, and resilience of women everywhere.

At Amani Blossoms, we honour the women who rise after pain, who rebuild after hardship, and who choose hope even after experiencing violence.

Every survivor’s journey is a powerful reminder that healing is possible and that no woman walks alone.

We believe in a world where every woman lives free from violence, supported by community, dignity, and opportunity to thrive.

To every woman:
Your voice matters
Your story matters
Your future matters

Together, let us continue to stand, support, and uplift one another.
Happy International Women’s Day!