Clean Start Kenya - The Magical Birth!

TERESA WANJIKU NJOROGE: Beyond the bars, Never Again!

Teresa served time between 2009 - 2011 at the Langata Women Maximum Security Prison accompanied by her then one-year-old daughter.

Her first-hand experience of prison, the desperate plight of the women and girls she met behind bars, and the revolving door of crime and poverty she witnessed inspired her to devote her life to the equipping, empowering, and preparation of imprisoned women for the precarious journey of reintegration into society.

After her release, she met with the Director of Rehabilitation and Welfare of the Kenya Prisons Service in 2013, and here the magical Clean Start Kenya was born. This is an organization, that works with women and children impacted by the criminal justice system to help them restore dignity and hope for successful reintegration into society.

But here is the story

Up to 2008, she is a normal banker, a city working lady who wakes up every morning to beat the traffic to her place of work. 

One morning a customer walks in from a different branch of the bank and would like to withdraw 10M, she involves everyone at the branch and the due diligence processes, and the customer is paid. Two weeks later, the mother branch of the customer calls and says, the customer says he did not make the withdrawal from the account.

Things turn nasty so fast and before she knew it she loses her job and during that painful period of trusting in God and praying, another bank calls her and gives her a job.

One morning at her new bank in the full glare of customers and colleagues Men in plainclothes walk in straight to her place and tell her ... "You are under arrest for defrauding your former employer and for stealing money" Very fast she is escorted to a waiting car with tight security without an opportunity to pick her bag or even call family and friends. 

The long legal journey, in and out of court premises for two and half years begins. And you know what? the prosecution lined up her former colleagues whom they paid the customer with as the witnesses against her. Clearly, she couldn't win this case.

Miraculously though, she found love during that period, a man who had been helping her with the court case proposed to her and married her. She found love in a strange situation.

She was later to be confined to Lang'ata Women's prison.

In prison with a three-month-old baby - a convict mother whose banking career had just kicked off and finished as soon as it had begun picking up. All because she refused to give bribes to buy her freedom as investigating officers had demanded.

She became a major news headline as a Bank Thief, with various media houses airing her story. After serving 8 months of her one-year conviction, she is released for good behavior and manners at the prison.   

She appeals, wins and she is found innocent of any crime. The government and the bank were ordered by the civil court to compensate her for wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution, and imprisonment. When God has your back and fights your battle, they can do whatever they wanna do but no one wins the battle that God fights for us.

Years later - in later 2017, she is at TED Women’s Conference in New Orleans giving her story and how she turned her misery to joy with an idea that has seen her reach heights that her banking career would not have propelled her. Yeah, God's time is the best!

Teresa is the proprietor of Clean Start Kenya, an organization that connects prisoners to opportunities in order to give them a second chance.

Watching her talk at the TED Show - I came to learn that, no matter how worse the situation is, that is the best time to turn your mourning into dancing.

Teresa is now an international figure invited to leading world conference centers as a speaker. - Now, imagine, she had not been falsely accused and charged would she have reached these great heights?

Sometimes God, allows us to go through situations so as to prepare us to greater heights that he has planned for us. But are we ready?