From Kakuma camp to CEO – Story of Maryam Noor.

Growing up at Kakuma Refugee Camp, situated in one of the poorest regions in Kenya, couldn’t possibly have been a walk in the park for Maryan Noor Yussuf.

The 20-year-old, first-year student at St. Paul’s University, who now owns a tour and travel company, is quite practically the embodiment of – to use the words of American rapper Drake – ‘started from the bottom now we’re here.’

This 20-year-old girl has defied all the odds stacked against her? This is the story of how her journey has been so far?

From Kakuma Refugee Camp to becoming the CEO of a tour and travel company, Maryan Noor Yussuf beat the odds.

This is the bitter-to-better story of Maryan Noor Yussuf.

Maryan remembers 2009 as one of the most miserable periods of her life; it is the year she lost her father who, to this day, they have never had the chance to bury.

In the subsequent years following the untimely passing of her father, who was the family bread-winner, life got tough for Maryan and her remaining family members – mother and three siblings – and they were forced to move out of their flat in Umoja to Kakuma Refugee Camp in pursuit of relief food and shelter.

The ordeal there was never better as she later contracted meningitis;  an inflammation of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord.

“In 2009 when my father dies we left for Kakuma.

Life in Kakuma was very terrible. I was in Class Three at the time and we were given meal cards every month, and the UN would give us cooking oil, few kilograms of maize and rice. The area also had scorpions and snakes which were poisonous,”.

According to Maryan, when life became tougher in Kakuma, her mother scoured around for some little money which they used as transport fare and moved to Eastleigh, Nairobi.

“We started living with people in Eastleigh. My mother used to wash utensils and brought us leftovers,”

The family later shifted back to where it all began in Umoja where a good samaritan, sponsored the primary school education of Maryan and her siblings.

In 2013, while in Class 7, Maryan finished writing her first book titled ‘I will be back’ based on the last words her father spoke to them before he left home on the day he met his demise.

The book was however not published at the time because a publishing house rejected it saying she was “young and incompetent.”

She took the manuscript to another publisher and it was not until 2017.

After her final secondary education examinations in 2018, Maryan was early this year employed by a tour and travel company where she worked for three months before resigning due to health issues.

In April, using the experience she got from her former employer, Maryan started her own tour and travel company known as Black Beasts Safaris in order to get a source of income for her health medication and university education.

Maryan’s passion is to become a journalist.