Growing up poor in Kenya as the lastborn of 5 children, at 10 years old, my dad passed away. And a few years later, my mum was retrenched from her government job. Living in poverty with a mom who was deeply committed to education gave me a whole new appreciation for school. She made sure I understood the value of education and how that plays out in life.
My elder sister later started the Molly Kiunga Foundation, a charity named after my mom that provides scholarships to needy students, where I serve as a trustee. Having been a scholarship student myself from Year 7 to college means I treat our scholarship recipients with dignity, love and empathy. I mentor them and go beyond providing financial support during the scholarship.
I worked for 3 years before joining college to raise tuition, and this again reinforced my love for education. In my previous role as a Community Relations Manager with UPS, I got to fund and lead upskilling projects that prepared college graduates for the workforce in India, the Middle East and Africa.
The biggest challenge I have encountered is losing a baby. In 2013, my husband and I lost our daughter at 20 weeks of pregnancy. I had to go through labour and delivery, except she was born still. That opened a whole new world for me; it was a traumatic experience. I started a nonprofit called Still A Mum that supports parents who've lost a child through miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death. I ran that for 7 years and supported over 8000 parents in Kenya and other countries in Africa. I benchmarked heavily from organisations in the UK, like Sands and Tommy’s, that had a great repository of materials online.
I have had so many lessons from loss, grief and running a nonprofit. During that season, I came across my now favourite book, Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. It talks about resilience and thriving after a traumatic experience.
In 2018, I got a grant from Facebook (now Meta) and opened the only counselling centre in Kenya dedicated to supporting bereaved parents. In 2020, my family and I moved to Dubai, and almost 5 years later, moved to London. I am now the Global Humanitarian Director, and my lived experience has been a great influence on my work. As a funder, I take the responsibility to steward budgets seriously and look for ways to bring shared value to my nonprofit partners.
As someone who once drafted many funding proposals and sent tons of reports to funders, I have a whole new appreciation of nonprofits, especially in grassroots organisations that may not have an M&E department or a proposal application or fundraising department. From a humanitarian perspective, being from Kenya and with a sister who worked in Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps, I have an appreciation of the amazing work being done by our partners like UNHCR, WFP, IOM, among others.
As someone from the global south who has begun to sit in rooms where decisions are made, I speak up, correct wrong information, make recommendations and generally add my voice to key discussions. I am grateful for the rooms that I find myself in and the privilege to speak for those not in the room. I have had a ton of practice doing this. As the founder of Still A Mum, I’ve often spoken on behalf of bereaved parents in government meetings in Kenya—for example, during discussions on how to integrate respectful bereavement care into the Ministry of Health’s policy framework for respectful maternal care
A milestone I am proud of is living abroad. The UK is my third home after Kenya and the UAE. Moving countries has taught me so much! I believe you’d have to be lazy to travel and live in different countries and remain unchanged. I moved to Dubai with many misconceptions and stereotypes I had about the Middle East, and I was happy to unlearn and learn. As a Christian, for the first time, I was a minority. I learned a lot about the Islamic faith, took a class at the cultural centre and appreciated the history of the country and region, their dressing, among other things. I spent time with colleagues and friends, got invited for iftar and generally immersed myself in the culture.
For the first time, I noticed I was Black and African. I took the opportunity to make friends from many nationalities living in the UAE. To date, my son’s best friend is Pakistani, whose family was our neighbour. Now in the UK, I am making friends in my neighbourhood – I got invited to a Christmas party!
My biggest learning has been not to stay on the periphery as an expatriate but to fully immerse yourself in the country.
The confidence to use my voice for good makes me a Disruptor. From my time at Still A Mum, I shared my personal experience with 2 miscarriages and pregnancy after loss, publicly being featured on local TV stations, BBC Africa, BBC World and other platforms. I did it to raise the voices of women who could never share their story in public for fear of being ostracised by their families. In my current role, I use my voice to influence humanitarian aid decisions.
As a great collaborator and relationship builder, I gather people from different functions in the company and even different countries to partner on key projects. I am a purposeful convenor. Finally, I don’t let fear deter me – I launch into things heart and head first because I believe you can’t improve what you don’t start. This year, I started a podcast called Bold Moves by Wanjiru Kihusa that’s now eight episodes in! I encourage you not to let fear or uncertainty hold you back. That thing you want, get started on it.
Caroline Kiunga is a Global Humanitarian Relief Director, leading impactful humanitarian response projects across the globe. She manages strategic philanthropy, collaborating with cross-functional teams across Healthcare, SCS, UPS technology group, among others. Caroline oversees the UPS Foundation’s humanitarian response during crises, collaborating with partners like UNHCR, IFRC, IOM, and WFP among others.
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