Bridgid Achieng: A young woman from Kibra who established her fashion empire portfolio in the city

Millionaire Bridget Achieng was born and raised in Kibera, Nairobi’s greatest informal community, which you’d never know from watching her interact with the capital’s well-heeled residents. She was supposed to marry an old guy she didn’t know while she was 17.

This is the type of charming narrative that leads to women’s rags-to-riches stories like this one. Even though Achieng’s meteoric climb makes her an oddity, her entrepreneurial success teaches us about the potential that exists in Nairobi’s informal sector.

Achieng developed a fashion empire in Nairobi at the age of 23. Her apparel and jewellery have been featured at Fashion Weeks around East Africa, and she has dressed some of the country’s most prominent media figures.

She narrates her story.

“To acquire a white-collar job in Nairobi, you ought to know somebody who knows somebody,” she explains, “or you have to bribe someone to offer you a job,” She indicated.

Rather, she took a job as a maid and relocated into a KES1500-per-month apartment in Kibera. She acquired a new work aiding a lady at a legal company a few years later.

It paid KES 5000 each month, and the woman sponsored her to take hospitality management lessons, which Achieng believed would lead to a regular job. She couldn’t get formal employment despite having finished secondary school and some trade programs.

Achieng was motivated by young millionaires in town. She took her KES 6000 entire savings, purchased some equipment, and began producing jewellery in her bedroom. Then she’d go for a tour around upper-class Nairobi districts, stopping anyone she felt may be able to sell her anything.

Achieng launched her boutique in downtown Nairobi sometimes back and she is now a permanent member of the fashion industry. She relocated herself, her mother, three brothers, and three relatives to a safer area on the outside of Kibera and into a home that has space for her 300 pairs of shoes. She is very supportive of all of them and has even recruited her mother, a talented tailor, to create her outfits.

“They told me that because my jewellery was so huge and flamboyant, it was appropriate for stage performance,” she adds. “They had been interviewing hairdressers for a week and hired me right away.”

I never saw myself as an event planner, much less as one of Kenya’s largest.

People are still perplexed as to how a socialite became a mother, a businesswoman, and now an event planner.

I recall not having any money while I was performing Naifest 1.

So my search for sponsors began. I went to every office in Nairobi, from huge firms to media houses, and all I received was no.

I recall that on the day of the event, it poured so hard that the streets were flooded, but no one seemed to mind since everyone showed up and had a good time. And that’s how I made KES 5.2 million.

She gradually gained repeat customers. Invitations to fashion shows began to appear in the mail as word spread. Then Tusker Project Fame learned about the girl who was dressing celebrities in her teeny-tiny Kibera bedroom.