Pamela Mboya

Pamela Mboya (1938 – 26 January 2009) was a Kenyan political activist and diplomat, the wife of government official Tom Mboya.

Early life and education

Pamela Odede was born at Maseno, near Lake Victoria. Her father Walter Odede was a politician. She studied art at Makerere University from 1957 to 1959. She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio.

Career

Pamela Odede married Thomas Mboya in 1962, in a large Roman Catholic wedding. She was widowed when he was assassinated on 5 July 1969. Images of Pamela Mboya as a glamorous bride, and as a young widow grieving, became iconic in Kenya's turbulent 1960s and 1970s; the name "Pamela" even became trendy for Kenyan girls after her influence. Pamela Mboya was frequently photographed as a hostess with international visitors: during her marriage, she danced with Prince Phillip to celebrate Kenya's independence in 1964; after she was widowed, she visited with Coretta Scott King and other survivors of loss by assassination.

Pamela Mboya was Kenya's permanent representative to the UN Habitat in the 1980s. She chaired HelpAge Kenya, and was a member of the Kenyan Women's Political Caucus.

Personal life

Pamela and Tom Mboya had five children together, one of whom died as a young boy. After her first husband died, Pamela Mboya was briefly married to her brother-in-law Alphonse Okoku, in observance of Luo tradition, and had a sixth child, named Tom Mboya Jr., with Okoku.

Pamela Mboya died from ovarian cancer in 2009, aged 70 years, in South Africa.

Her daughter Maureen Odero is a judge in Mombasa, and her daughter Susan Mboya is president of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation and the wife of Evans Kidero, governor of Nairobi.