Fortune is still smiling at the widow in Mombasa who boiled stones to dupe her small children to sleep in the hope she was cooking food for them.
Peninah Bahati, 36, will be relocated after women leaders in Mombasa visited her on Friday and decided her security was no longer guaranteed.
She will be moved to a better house and her children taken to school, Mombasa Woman Representative Asha Mohamed said.
Kenyans have been supporting Bahati, who was left to take care of her eight children alone after her husband Kaingu Charo was killed by thugs in Guruguru, Mariakani, last June.
Her story was highlighted by the media and well wishers have been contributing food, cash and household goods.
“We have assessed her situation and realised she needs a lot of change. First, we want to counsel her so that she can live with her newfound fame and money,” Asha said.
The Woman Representative said Bahati needed to be trained so she could best manage the newfound wealth.
Women leaders said her security was not guaranteed. They included nominated MCA Milka Moraa, Muhuri gender officer Topister Juma and county social worker Elvina Mzungu.
Two police officers have been deployed to Bahati's house to guard her day and night.
Asha said Bahati’s children will be counseled because they had been living on the streets.
“Her children, most of whom dropped out of school, have been scavenging dumpsites and doing odd jobs trying to get food on the table,” she said.
The plan is to use the bursary kitty of the Woman Representative's office to take all of them back to school.
The highest educated dropped out at Class Seven.
Asha said the food Bahati had received so far could last her family a year.
“We have to take her from this environment to another environment where she is not known because of her security,” she said.
The current two-room house she is living in will be renovated and rented out so she can earn from it.
Mzungu said the children, after counseling, would preferably be taken to boarding school so they can concentrate on their studies.
MCA Moraa and Juma said they would take Bahati through family planning sessions so she can better manage her fertility.
Bahati’s eldest son is about 20 and the youngest is four months old.
They said her age and fertility could attract predatory men who would be out to take advantage of her newfound wealth.
“Men from her husband’s side who chased her away now want to inherit her. This will not happen,” Asha said.
Edited by Henry Makori
