Brilliant Nairobi Student Facing Homelessness Appeals for Employment to Complete Final Year of Computer Science Degree

Nairobi’s Parsley Otambo, a Computer Science student with an A- grade, pleads for work after homelessness and family illness forced him to defer university.

By: AXL Media

Published: Mar 11, 2026, 6:39 AM EDT

Source: The information in this article was sourced from TUKO.co.ke

The Heavy Toll of Academic Ambition Amidst Poverty

Parsley Otambo, a young man raised in the Soweto area of Kayole, Nairobi, serves as a poignant example of the barriers facing brilliant students from marginalized backgrounds. After scoring a mean grade of A- in the 2016 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), Otambo secured a prestigious spot at Kenyatta University to study Computer Science. For many in his community, such academic success is viewed as a definitive escape from systemic poverty. However, Otambo’s journey suggests that intellectual merit alone is often insufficient when faced with the compounding pressures of family survival and limited financial safety nets.

A Family Crisis Ignited by Mental Health Struggles

The trajectory of Otambo’s education shifted drastically in early 2018 when his mother began showing symptoms of schizophrenia. At the time, a lack of community awareness regarding mental health conditions left the family ill-equipped to manage the diagnosis. As the firstborn, Otambo felt a moral and practical obligation to pause his degree to ensure his mother’s safety and provide for his younger siblings. According to Otambo, the reality of living with a relative suffering from schizophrenia is far more devastating than any textbook description, leading to a period of instability that eventually saw his mother move away with his brother while he was left to fend for himself.

Resilience Through Years of Academic Deferment

Faced with the sudden disappearance of his core family unit, Otambo spent four years outside the classroom, working various jobs to keep his family afloat. It was not until 2022 that he secured a significant role with a local NGO, which finally provided the financial stability required to return to Kenyatta University. During this productive interval, he balanced his rigorous Computer Science coursework with professional responsibilities as a social media manager and programs director. This period proved that Otambo possessed the discipline to juggle high-level academic requirements with the demands of the modern workforce, provided he had a steady income.