Raised in a devout Christian family, Wanja Mwaura used to help her parents reach out to orphans and widows in her rural home in Kiambu.
Her father, Samuel Mwaura, was a pastor and he would engage Wanja in his philanthropic undertakings time and again.
Picking up from her parents, Wanja, 37, started to reach out to unfortunate members of the society while still in school.
“I grew up knowing to take care of the less fortunate. I cannot tell when I started since I found myself sharing lunch and even sanitary towels with my fellow learners,” she said.
To live her dream, Wanja started My Brothers Keeper Foundation, a live online platform where she mobilises funds to help the needy members of the society.
“To help the needy, one needs money, sometimes lots of it. It is for this reason I created a forum where people of good will would contribute the little they have to deserving cases in the society,” she said.
My Brothers Keeper Foundation has over 80,000 followers who are based in the country and abroad.
On the platform, Wanja runs a “marathon” where well wishers make donations from as little as Sh100 for specific cases for a period of about two hours, usually in the morning.
When the star visited Wanja at her office in Thika at around 10am, she had just completed a marathon that raised Sh200,000 in aid of a three-year-old girl who needed hearing aids.
“We needed Sh248,000 for the hearing aid but we managed Sh200,000. I am sure we will hit the target by the end of the day,” she said.
Now known as mama marathon, Wanja finds herself fundraising almost everyday.
“People contribute from Sh100 but there are those who get touched and give as much as Sh100,000,” she added.
Wanja holds her marathons in the morning as it is the time most of her followers, both locally and abroad, are free.
“I want to mobilise funds from my Kenyan followers as they wake up and my supporters in the diaspora before they go to bed,” she said.
The platform has an open M-Changa account- an online fundraising platform used to raise funds for medical, education, weddings, churches, organisations and farewells.
Members contributing money are able to monitor how much has been raised and withdrawn.
When donations exceed the target amount, followers decide how the beneficiaries will spend the surplus amount.
Wanja gets, on a daily basis, about 50 requests for fundraisers from people across the country.
“Usually, it is people who are not in need that refer the desperate cases to me,” she pointed out.
“When a case is presented to me, I look at it to see if it is genuine. I also go to the ground to ascertain the situation.
"I get their consent and if it is a medical case, I get second opinions from doctors who are my followers. They usually do it for free,” she added.
Wanja trained as a nurse and practiced from 2003 to 2010 when she went to Saudi Arabia to seek greener pastures. She returned after three years but did not seek employment as a nurse.
“I knew practicing nursing again would take too much of my time and prevent me from doing what I love,” she said.
Wanja is married with two kids, a boy aged 13 and girl, 11.
She has come to be known to many Kenyans as a hero whose work and support are greatly admired and celebrated across the country.
Wanja is known for her kind deeds such as helping her childhood friend Patrick Wanjiru aka Hinga get rehabilitated from drugs.
She helped Hinga, a former street boy, claim back his life in a remarkable transformation.
It was in October, 2017 when Wanja, on her way to the market in Lower Kabete heard someone call out her name. When she looked back, she saw a tall, emaciated man with bulging eyes and dirty clothes seated by the side of the road.
The stranger explained himself to her, only for Wanja to realise it was a friend she had known since childhood.
She appealed to members of the public through social media for support in helping Hinga get rehabilitation.
Hinga got the treatment he needed and became sober. He however, passed on in March 2019 due to stomach complications.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)
