"I was born in Kilifi County but bred in Mombasa. A little bit of my childhood was spent in Tanga. Growing up, I spent most of my time in Mombasa; so to say I have lived most of my years in Mombasa county and most of my activities are carried out within the county," said Salma.
Even though she undertook a Bachelor’s programme in Maritime Business Management, Salma saw a different calling in a field she had a passion for.
Writing thus enabled her to voice, on behalf of the voiceless women the things that are often swept under the carpet especially in the community she grew up from. Moreover, during her spell at the campus, she took part in community development as a member of ENACTUS (Entrepreneurial Action in Us), which is a global association pioneering entrepreneurial change in the community using innovation. Here she learnt how to channel her writing through her expressive blog, into solving community problems back in Mombasa county; her resident hometown.
"Having taken Maritime business management, as a choice of career in University did not end up being my calling. So when I was in school, I did some projects with ENACTUS - a business club in Moi University that mainly focuses on how young people could use the power of entrepreneurial skills and innovation to make a change within the community," said Salma.
ENACTUS enabled her, at only 23 years of age to initiate an organic beauty company using her own savings. She stands today as the founder of Salummy Beauty Products. This was established after constant wails of discomfort from women severely affected by lengthened use of chemicals on hair, from which point she savored capitalizing on the niche, en-route venturing into the beauty industry.
"I realized that with time whenever I went for ENACTUS community engagement activities, there is a certain level of satisfaction that I used to get from it. " explained Salma.
On the interior of a much spacious hall at Leven house, Ndia Kuu Road, at Fort Jesus, A big letter "S" sits beautifully on a wooden stand. This is the first initial of her brand "Salummy" that she has worked so hard to establish since 2015, even though her writing skills were nurtured from a tender age as 10.
Inside this room that she uses to mentor other young girls into picking up roles in society for the betterment of the Coastal community, chairs and neatly spread tables, subtle lighting, wall including plaques, wall murals, paintings and pictures of past events neatly filled the space therein.
Everything combined well to conjure the atmosphere of an Arabic food parlour. But much bigger in space. And this is the place where Salma does much of her reading, meditations and meetings with friends who help her push her brand forward. According to her, it offers a place from where much of her writings can be knitted from. The space cum office is open once every week, a time she plans, reads, researches, analyzes future goals and evaluate past expectations with a team of ambitious colleagues.
"When I was in campus, I got the opportunity to represent Kenya twice as a member of ENACTUS. In 2016, we won the ENACTUS Kenya Championship with my team of seven other persons and we represented the state for the ENACTUS world cup, clinching the semifinalist which put us among the top 16 countries," said Salma.
"In 2017, my team won again and we went to London to represent the country. The theme of our project then was "How to transform waste into wealth. I think from this point is when people started turning heads. They started paying attention to Salummy as a brand back in Mombasa. I was all over the Kenyan media by then and this proved to be a good turning point in pushing Salummy as a brand to where she is now," explained Salma.
The twenty-six year old reiterated that passion in writing is one of the key ingredients that make Salummy who she is. She started scribbling down catchy stories while growing up.
As her education progressed, so did her budding talent in inspiring and motivating by way of writing.
"Salummy I would say is this young girl who is 25 years old and who has this massive passion for motivating people and writing to inspire masses. One of the key things that I think make me who I am today is that I'm a writer. I started writing at the tender age of 10 years old or so. And I didn't have many friends then, so my writing was my safe space. The place I could go to be myself. So I started writing and reading and at a tender age, I would read books that older people won't read. I needed to quench my unending thirst for writing," said Salma, with a cute hospitable smile.
She handled lengthier writings involving chapters and series while in secondary school at Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Secondary and Technical school, Nyali, Mombasa town. Back then, she was more comfortable doing fictitious and imaginative writings based on true events and her classmates pushed her constantly with their mantra 'do the next one' . This is when she realized that her writings had a great positive impact on a lot of his peers. Now, she has amassed to herself a large readership base ranging from younger to older persons in varied walks of life.
"I started doing series writing while in high school. I bylined rape cases, depicting diverse scenarios which were basically poetic fiction.
My classmates were really inspired. They almost always coerced me to unleash more episodes saying 'do the next one' and I touched so many people then," said Salma with content.
While still in high school, Salma participated in tournaments which were ever forthcoming. She got an opportunity to represent the nation in an East African Community (E.A.C) organized writing competition and she did not disappoint.
"I participated thus, in the East African Writing Competition and was among the top three - which was quite a big deal for me at that time because the tournament involved Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Djibouti," said Salma, chuckling.
From these kind of tournaments, she realized that a love story had ensued between writing and her. And she made certain that her writings were easily relatable especially to people from her community. In her own community, there has been a long-standing myth of talking about things that people from their society barely talk about.
And this inspired her to write a book which was launched on March 1, 2020. The book speaks of pain, serenity and healing in a poetic manner.
"From these tournaments, I realized that I had this thing with writing and I ensured that my writings are always relatable. That means that people could actually relate to the writings. At the same time, there was a myth of talking about things that people in our community do not talk about. Which brings me to something else. Right now I'm working on my book which is out, launched on 1st of March 2020, 'Dried Rose Petals and Lavender Buds.' This is a poetry book that I have been writing and can say that it is something which is a gift I have given myself because it is like a combination of older experiences that I have experienced throughout my life. It has healing and pain woven together. Dried Rose Petals is the sad part. The pain part. So these are the bitter roses and are dried so have no use. But Lavender buds means that now, you are sprouting into something else,” explained Salma.
“I come from a society of pain but how I use my pain to become what I am today and aspire even better tomorrow was the inspiration behind the poetic book,” added Salma.
Most natives of the Coast flaunt an English life. To this end, Salma saw it inevitable to speak about cringe topics affecting the people therein. The poetic book, therefore, published issues regarded as abominable when openly talked about, something that never deterred her as she intertwined Arabic and Swahili culture throughout the piece of writing in a critical, poetic style.
"So in this poetry book, I've talked about things that I know people in my community are not comfortable talking about. But I have talked about them very openly like issues of virginity and I think it is something like a taboo for you to openly talk about. But I talk about it in a poetic way. And it is a book that has instances of Arabic and Swahili culture infused in the writing. This is because most writings are usually done in just one language. But I had that aspect of bringing out various cultures as much as I can so that it becomes more relatable to the community.
And people know that somebody in our community could write something for us and not somebody else writing the same story of us for us," said Salma.
In the exclusive interview with Coast Woman, Salma intimated her take on gender parity especially within the Coast, with the society regarding its women as being lazy and having a penchant for flamboyance. To her, a lot needs to be done to elevate the status quo of our ladies. She also views contemporary women as more goal-driven, aware and empowered.
Moreover, men are feeling the threat now, with women picking more elegant spaces in present time leadership, community work, entrepreneurship and many more sectors of Kenya's growing economy.
"When people talk about this idea of women and employment; as a woman I would say that currently at the Coast, there is a lot of improvement in terms of opportunities and in terms of the growth. Sometimes when I interact with men, they tell me, 'Oh! You guys are now beating us off' like it is now becoming an imbalance. Some of our men are seated at the baraza but women are out there doing their things. And I would say that this improvement is really really good. I would not say that I want to look at it as intimidating. But there is so much that women need to overcome especially in issues like Gender-Based Violence (GBV). Women still face a lot of prejudice in the working spaces and they still feel interrupted. They still feel they are not enough and they still shrink their voices. We still have women who contemplate shrinking themselves in meetings fledged with men. So we still have a long way to go, women also still face a lot of imbalance when it comes to family viz-a-viz career, especially because we come from a society that is so male chauvinistic," explained Salma.
From a tender age, she knew that writing was her calling. And she shared that, were she to keep writing throughout her entire life, this is something she would wholeheartedly agree to. She has retrospectively represented Kenya globally through a diverse array of writing and leadership programs. Last year, she represented the state in the African Presidential Leadership Programme organized in Egypt. The year before, she was a Mandela Washington fellow representing Kenya at the Mandela Washington fellowship as an exceptional young leader. She has also had different programmes with foreign varsities including YALI, Hult Prize and the African Leadership University.
But one of my greatest achievements has been to serve as a Young Media Zone Expert for the World Export Development Forum organized by the International Trade Center, YALDA and USAID Ethiopia at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where I got to interview some high profiled people from around Africa including the AU Youth Envoy, Aya Chebbi. One thing I have learnt from such forums is the power of exposure in allowing you as a person to transform from within and to be able to think outside the box. And now, I use this through my works to channel community change back in Mombasa and beyond," said Salma.
"With my knowledge from such programmes, I allow the people I work with back home to gain critical thinking, analytical, and problem-solving skills. They can then be in a position to examine complex situations in life," added Salma convincingly.
The programs that come with her writing and blogging encourage targeted individuals to invest in the self. They also allow individuals to appreciate the undisputed value of reading. To this end, the programs are tailor-made to rejuvenate reading culture which is slowly drifting away amidst the citizenry.
"In our mentorship programmes at Mentor.Transform.Yield (MTY), the organization that I founded that focuses on youth empowerment , we encourage personal investment and consciousness of self. Because I believe the greatest gift one could give themselves is to invest in themselves. This means you have to nurture a productive morning routine, be able to read a lot, meditate, journal your way out, create a list of affirmations and find goals that can take you from one place to another," said Salma.
During her own free time, Salma enjoys swimming, dancing, reading, travelling and she is also adventurous and has tried out mountain/canyon climbing, jet skiing, zip-lining and quad bike trekking at the Sinai Deserts .
However, the 25-year-old fears heights and would not stomach very tall places. Equally, anything with a long tail, for instance, squirrels, rats, snakes. She admits that such creatures would seldom please her as she has natural loathe towards them.
Salma currently runs an active Instagram page where she showcases her work @expressing_through_salummy which she uses to jot down poetic rhymes and inspirational features. She has in the past enjoyed support from renowned organizations that offered her help, in pushing forward her writings and youth empowerment programs within Kenya and beyond. Machele Foundation, Premiere hospital, Miss Baus Collection, Educare International, Abdulswamad Shariff Nassir, mentioning but a few are some of the organizations which have strongly supported her past and underway projects.
