- Age
- 27 Years
- Location
- Nairobi
- Marital Status
- Separated
- Education
- Complete Secondary
- Pathways Segment
A sales agent using a basic phone to stay reachable and sustain her work
For some women, digital tools are not about opportunity or exploration, they are just what’s needed to keep earning. Even small changes or failures can disrupt livelihoods, especially when women are afraid to experiment and rely on others to keep things working.
How She Uses the Phone
For most of her adult life, Selina never thought owning a phone herself was necessary. In the town where she grew up, there was always someone nearby willing to lend or share theirs - a neighbour, a cousin, a friend. She would insert her own SIM, make the call she needed, and hand it back. Sometimes they would sit together watching YouTube videos. “It was never a problem,” she says. “Someone always had a phone.”
That changed when she moved to Nairobi with her three children. The city felt faster and less friendly. People guarded their phones, and borrowing suddenly felt awkward. She no longer had the support network she once relied on. The job she eventually found, working as a stove field sales agent, also depended entirely on her being reachable. “If they can’t call me, I can’t work,” she says.
Her employer noticed her juggling borrowed handsets and eventually gave her a used Itel feature phone from the office.
“You’ll need this to follow up with customers and update me,” he told her. It was basic, but it opened the door to regular commissions and a steadier rhythm of work.
Each morning now begins with Selina checking for missed calls, a customer asking for a demo, a referral from a neighbour, her supervisor assigning a new market for the day. Calls are her lifeline. “If I miss the call, I miss the sale,” she says. A missed sale means a week of stretching food at home.
She even had access to WhatsApp on her feature phone and she used to buy the smallest data bundle possible to use it. But recently WhatsApp stopped working on her phone and she heard from someone that she would need to get a smartphone to use WhatsApp.
Her Ecosystem of Learning and Facilitation
Once her employer handed her the feature phone, Selina began learning out of necessity. She taught herself how to return calls, check airtime, and buy small data bundles. Anything beyond those basics felt risky. Settings, saving numbers, or fixing errors all seemed dangerous. “This phone is my work,” she says. “I can’t just try things.”
Her eldest son became her informal guide. She had saved from her earnings to buy him a smartphone on credit for school, even though she didn’t own one herself. He set up her WhatsApp account, showed her how to use YouTube on his phone, and taught her how to play videos she downloaded using office Wi-Fi.
When something goes wrong like the screen freezes, a pop-up appears, or an M-Pesa message looks suspicious then she hands the phone to him. “You check first,” she always says. “I don’t want to spoil anything.”
After losing money once through a fraudulent M-Pesa alert, Selina became even more cautious. Now she avoids responding to unfamiliar numbers altogether. Her son reviews every transaction before she completes it and manages her Facebook privacy settings so she is shielded from unwanted content. “I prefer it simple,” she says. “Simple and safe.”
At the office, where there is free Wi-Fi, she downloads short product clips for demonstrations and a few entertainment videos for evenings at home. Once she learns a step, she remembers it and repeats it confidently. But anything unfamiliar still feels risky.
For Selina, the phone remains, above all, a tool for work - to coordinate stove demos, confirm deliveries, and keep her commissions coming in. She does not aspire to be “more digital.” “I just want it to keep working,” she says. “That’s enough.”