Tahira Mohamed scored 252 marks in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).
However, despite the poor performance, she has, over the years, risen to become one of the youngest PhD holders in the country.
Mohamed holds a PhD degree in Development Studies from the the University of Sussex, Brighton.
Here is her story as told by WoK.
Background
Mohamed was born and raised in Moyale, Marsabit County in a family of two boys and seven children; she is the fifth born.
Unfortunately, her father was mentally challenged, a situation that forced her mother to be the sole breadwinner of the family.
In an interview with Standard, Mohamed stated that her mother engaged in business activities to sustain the family.
“I would come home from school and help my mum sell incense, which she was making at home so that we could get something for food,” she said.
Education
Mohamed wrote her KCPE and despite performing poorly, she joined Moyale Girls’ Secondary School using bursaries.
She studied for a year before dropping out at Form Two after the bursaries were not enough to keep her in school.
Mohamed stayed home until her sister who was in university enrolled her at Trikha Girls Secondary School in Thika using her HELB loan.
Despite the challenges, she eventually sat for her Kenya Certificate of Secondary School Education (KCSE) and scored B+.
She later enrolled at the University of Nairobi and graduated with a first-class honours degree in Anthropology.
Mohamed topped the class of 2016 after managing a GPA of 74.
Scholarship
She earned a full scholarship from UoN enrolled for her Masters of Art in International Studies at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies.
She handled human smuggling across the Kenya-Ethiopia border for her master’s project and she crossed the borders, visit police station, find brokers and smuggled people.
Mohamed completed he master’s degree and joined the University of Sussex for her PhD.
Her thesis was on ‘The role of the moral economy in response to uncertainty among the pastoralists of Northern Kenya.
Mohamed studied how pastoralists in Isiolo have gone through different forms of crises like drought, animal disease, and conflict for the past 45 years – from 1975 to 2020.
She has plans to build a project to help her community.
“I will continue studying and researching because most of the time the projects which are implemented in these pastoral areas are designed from the outside and don’t consider local perspectives,” she said.
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