Of Matatus, Emotional Storms, and the Girls Who Don’t Speak.

A matatu ride. A letter from my daughter. A realization about unspoken storms. This is how Hope Club was born—in the quiet spaces where pre-teen girls hide their hearts.

But for real—what happened to Kenyan matatu users never opening windows? My goodness. I found myself in a 14-seater with 18 of us packed in. Wah, I don’t know what we’re incubating to hatch into😏? The heat, the discomfort, the sneers when someone dared pick a call... it was comedy and chaos in motion.

Anyway, a couple of days earlier, I had received a letter. Not just any letter—but one from my 10-year-old daughter. It was a full complexity of emotion that even adults struggle to unpack. Fear. Insecurity. Protectiveness. Love.

It was triggered by what I considered a harmless shift in our normal routine. Nothing dramatic. But to her, it meant everything. She didn’t like it. She even wrote that she felt unloved. That word gripped me like a hand to the throat. I couldn’t wait to get home, to hug her and talk. To assure her that I was here. That I wasn’t going anywhere.

When I brought it up again at home, I was met with an emotional tsunami. She cried deeply and said she wanted things to stay the same: me and her. Familiar. Predictable. Safe.

And beneath all of that, I realized something deeper:
Many girls carry these silent storms within them.

I began to think about the kind of grief most young girls don’t talk about. Not grief from death—but grief from absence. From inconsistent parenting. From not knowing how or where to process their feelings. And perhaps most painfully—from feeling like they can not talk about it.

Some girls don’t speak because they worry it will upset their parents.
They fear being told they’re overreacting.
They don’t want to open wounds that might make home even harder.
Because how can the maker of the emotional storm also be the checker?

Divorce. Separation. A parent’s new partner. Absenteeism. Bereavement. Conflict at home.
It’s all too much—and yet so little is said.

My daughter tells me that at school, emotions are rarely discussed. That there’s no guidance or counseling space. That emotions are seen as “weak” or “personal.” The girls cope. They form small groups. They distract themselves with creative activities. But many are silently weighed down.

That’s how Hope Club was born in my heart.

A school-based space where girls like mine—girls who don’t want to talk, who don’t even know how to start—can be gently held through creative activities, emotional learning, journaling, and coaching.

A space where they can name things they didn’t know they were allowed to feel.
Where they can learn that emotion is not weakness.
That vulnerability doesn’t make them a problem.
And that nothing they carry is too strange or shameful.

Hope Club is for every girl who feels too much, too quietly.
For the ones who’ve learned to cope without ever learning to heal.

Because girls deserve to be held before they break.

Because the world needs whole women—and that starts with emotionally supported girls.

And because sometimes… 'all a girl wants is her mum.'