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Women work balance.[File, Standard]
On this year’s Mother’s Day, flowers, cakes, chocolates and handwritten notes found their way into staff rooms and restaurant counters at five hospitality establishments, Cozy Residences, Ulwazi Place, Cafe Amka, Mawimbi Seafood Restaurant and KASA Malindi. Women staff in these establishments were recognised not only for the service they provide, but for the invisible emotional labour they carry into public spaces every day.
Through Wilberforce Okwiri’s photographs, from Nairobi dining spaces to Malindi hotel corridors, the spotlight is on these special mothers of the hospitality industry, whose employers took the initiative to celebrate them last Sunday during Mother’s Day. The women appear smiling, composed and elegant in uniform.
For many women in the hospitality industry, motherhood does not end when a shift begins. They leave home as mothers and arrive at work still carrying that instinct. This is the life of Irene Kiroko, a receptionist at Fedha+ Elsie Ridge, Nairobi.
