Salim Swaleh: From Hawking Mandazis in Bondeni to Mudavadi's Communications Director
Salim Swaleh with his wife
Director of Communications in the office of Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi Salim Swaleh’s story is a typical grass to grace story.
The former Nation Media Group journalist rose through the ranks from hawking Mandazi in a Nakuru slum to becoming the Head of Communications in Musalia Mudavadi’s office.
The former news anchor at NTV was born in Bondeni slum, on December 5,1985.
Growing up, in Bondeni slum, in Nakuru City, Swaleh witnessed firsthand how poverty devastates.
Unknown to many, at the age of just 10 years, Swaleh could traverse Bondeni and other neighboring slums hawking mandazi and chapati.
Swaleh joined Bondeni Primary school between classes one to four, but dropped due to financial constraints, to join his grandmother in Gilgil, Nakuru County, where he again continued hawking mandazi, chapati and samosas to earn a living for the survival of his family.
“At the age of about ten when life became unbearable, l dropped out of school and started hawking mandazi, chapati and samosa for survival. I could juggle between school and hawking,” revealed Swaleh in a recent interview.
“I mastered the culinary skills as an act of survival,” he recalled.
His father and mother were from Bondeni and Gilgil respectively.
His father had three wives and his mother bore him two children, Swaleh and his sister.
Later Swaleh moved with his mother and stepfather and was enrolled in Nakuru Primary school.
Owing to his age he rejoined school at class seven and not class four where he was before.
In an interview on Churchill Show, the journalist disclosed how difficult it was for him as a young man because he had no stable family to live with.
"When l went to Nakuru Primary school I was a big man and the teachers decided to test me in class seven. I did not understand anything but I had the zeal to learn. I even had a tutor back home and believe it or not I passed my exams," he said.
Salim Swaleh with Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi
He sat his Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) at Nakuru Primary and scored a total of 365 out of 500 marks.
He later joined Menengai High School for his secondary school studies.
His dream to become a journalist was intensified when he got an opportunity to work at KBC e-learning while at Menengai secondary school.
Salim later scored a C plus in his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education.
He worked as an untrained primary school teacher in Eldoret and as a casual labourer in Nairobi’s Mukuru Kwa Njenga, before joining college.
Swaleh studied mass communication at Mwangaza college in Nakuru and worked in Sauti Ya Mwananchi radio station, where he earned Sh8000 every month. All the while he lived in a rented cubicle at the Bondeni slum.
He worked at Radio Mwananchi for four years.
It is while working at Sauti ya Mwananchi that he got to travel to Iran to work at the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting corporation.
He later enrolled for a degree while working in Iran with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting corporation.
It is while working at the station, when he also married his childhood sweetheart
He returned to Kenya and secured a job as a news anchor at Citizen Television in 2016.
The veteran news anchor later joined NTV in 2018.
Swaleh worked as a Swahili managing editor cum anchor until Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi tapped on his talent to work as the head of communications in his office.