From Refugee To House girl then CEO

When she came to Kenya to seek refuge from Uganda eight years ago, she had nothing other than a seconday school certificate. But now, Lilian Namuleje, 27, is counting her many blessings.


Had anybody suggested to Lillian Nabuleje, 27, that in less than eight years she would be the executive director of a flourishing event-planning company, and pursuing her PhD in a recognised Kenyan University, she would have probably been offended for a joke taken too far.

When she came to Kenya in 2004 as a refugee from Uganda, Lillian had nothing other than a high school certificate.

However, time has passed so fast for Lillian that she can only sit back and look at her transformed life with a big smile.

Not only does she own a thriving hospitality firm, but is also a lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology where she is also pursuing her PhD.

She shares her remarkable story:

“I grew up in Bulaago village in Eastern Uganda. Life was never easy for my family and I. My father was a peasant farmer and could not take care of all his nine children. I know what it is to sleep hungry and go to school with no shoes and with tattered clothes.  I managed to pay my fees through kind donations, otherwise I would have dropped out,” she shares.

After high school, Lilian was invited by an aunt  for a church function in Kenya. Since things were bad at home, she decided to settle in as a refugee.

Little did she know that the visit was the beginning of a turbulent journey towards better things ahead?

As fate would have it, when she landed in Kenya, she fell sick and had to be hospitalised.  Her aunt offered her a place to live as she recovered.

Things took a different turn when she got better.

“For some reason, my aunt slowly turned me into her house help. I would do all the cooking, cleaning and laundry while my cousins who were grown up, just watched TV. I just persevered because I needed the accommodation. But deep in my heart I knew I could be more than a domestic worker,” Lillian recalls.

Unbearable life

With time, living with her aunt became a nightmare.

“My cousins would steal and maliciously destroy my personal effects. I was also overworked and they treated me like a slave. I hated it,” she says with a tinge of sadness.