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Joyce Wachira Speaks, Grief Literacy & Compassionate Leadership

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Joyce Wachira Speaks, Grief Literacy & Compassionate Leadership

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Joyce Wachira Speaks, Grief Literacy & Compassionate Leadership, Rhapta Road, Westlands, Nairobi.

Vision:
Provide Community Grief Literacy for the sake of raising Compassionate Leaders & Citizens

Mission
To train leaders on compassionate leadership though bereavement workshops, and public engagement on bereavement care - Helps healing the bereaved

10/04/2026

A question was asked to a group of parents (active primary caregivers) for children with different critical long-term illnesses.

❓Do you attend any support group
❓If not, would you like a support group
❓If so, are you able to get your child a temporary carer for about 2-3 hours each month
❓Do you prefer, virtual, or in-person support group
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In-person, was the majority of answers.
Below is a summary from answers given by thirteen parents.
✍️
In person will give me opportunity to “step out a little” but also allows me to sit next to someone who truly understand me, feels what I feel and can reach out to my hand and say “I see you”
I also want to know from others how they are coping and if what I experience is also their experience - I want to see them say these experiences, not through screens but face to face. I want to get a hug and hug them too. I think this will help me.
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JoyceSpeaks advocates for such caregivers: here is her WHY.

👉In a hospital ward, or a therapy unit, children are receiving excellent care. Doctors and all healthcare workers are doing amazing job to care for the children.

Parents, siblings and family caregivers are happy that the healthcare systems are doing a good job.

So, why are friends and some family members wodering why the (caregivers) are depressed, feel isolated, exhausted, etc.

They caregivers say this because, they are feel that way. They have layers of losses that you do not see. They are processing things in their heads, alone: unseen and unheard.

They are thinking of the “Ifs”, what if my child dies? What if I sought a diagnosis earlier?

They are still battling with the big “name of the diagnosis” given years or months back, they are battling the loss of good health of their precious child, their loss of cognitive function, and a daily routine for care, that is exhausting.

They have little and "enough" knowledge on medical terminologies. Knowing the medical inevitability of death, while they hold onto hope. The heart is having a tug of war.Hope Despair Hope Despair.

They live a life of fear and hope, all felt at that same time. Emotions move like a pendulum :despair and hope. A child’s good day brings hope; a bad day brings despair. This is their life.

Some are carrying unspoken rejection from their own spouses, families and friends from having a child “with a strange condition”

The many layers of grief and no one sees, after all the child is physically present.

So they hide their sorrow, pain and desperation from the society, yet feeling alone, misunderstood and their grief invalidated.

Offer them space to talk.
“A supported caregiver is more likely to provide nurturing, resilient care for their child”

08/04/2026

Support group for widows and widowers in Nyeri.

Topic: Anticipatory Grief : By JoyceSpeaks

Untold stories that are between 2 to 8 years old. Breaking their silence and releasing hurts they thought no one else understood.

The power of support groups. The power of grief literacy.

Sitting with 22 widows and widowers, listening to their painful and untold stories of spouses lost after long-term illnesses.

The 'silent' grief of separation. – not just after death, but before the death, during their illness.

For most of the older widows/widowers, when their spouse fell ill, their children moved them to the city for better care, unintentionally stripping them of their lifelong companion.

Separation due to illness is its own form of grief. Anticipatory grief is compounded when medical necessity leads to spousal separation. While the medical intention is good, needed and important - the emotional cost is also high.

Protection, Isolating, Connecting and Caring - How do we balance this.

One story -
“I was denied an opportunity to visit my husband in the city when he was sick. My children thought they were protecting me, but when he died, they took me to view his body, what for? This did not sit well with me”

We have to advocate for ways to connect.

06/04/2026

JoyceSpeaks returns to Nyeri to launch a widows/widowers grief group.

In Nyeri, 6 weeks ago, 21 widows/widowers gathered, shared a narrative using their own words, but here is what was common.

✍️ "We want to memorialize or talk about our spouses, but If we remember, or mention our late husband/wife name in our communities, we are told we are stuck, or to look for people to marry. This is part of the most hurting part of this journey"✍️

This is a common narrative widows/widowers are told by their community.

JoyceSpeaks taught them on Legacy Preservation, after starting a support group for them.

Often, society thinks, believes and verbalize that “keeping your loved one’s legacy is being stuck”

After a loss, preserving the legacy of your husband, mother, father, child or a lost loved one is not getting stuck.

This is in remembering, honoring, sharing memories, values, lasting impact, personal stories that shape how they are remembered by family and community.

This is moving forward❤️‍🩹 without them. This is not getting stuck.

Communities, be kind to those who have lost loved ones. You can not dictate how they want to move forward.🙏

01/04/2026

Loss and grief can turn the world "Black & White," leaving life feeling numb, dark, and colorless.

Among other things, a Grief Coach helps you navigate these heavy emotions, guiding you back toward a life filled with the vibrant colors of hope, joy, and growth.

By walking through the R Journal with JoyceSpeaks, you aren't just investing in your own healing; your purchase of the R Journal Pathway Sessions directly supports the TEARS Foundation Kenya, ensuring their vital community programs continue to reach those in need . https://thetearsfoundation.org/chapters/kenya/

Light your world and help others do the same. It is a ripple effect.

30/03/2026

Inspired post after sitting with a mother with a child abled differently and in need of specialized care.
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Raising a child with special care needs can be exhausting: The unseen “ambiguous” feeling of grief that no one really understand. This grief coexists with deep love, joy and the necessity to embrace a new way to parent.

Most people walk through this kind of grief alone and in silence. They still grow in the understanding of child needs, and move forward as they parent their children.

If you are one of them, I am here to tell you that you matter.

I respect and honor the silent power in your day to day. Your invisible and unheard pain, but also the invisible strength of holding yourself together.

Not just for the milestones people can celebrate, not just for the judgmental words thrown at you, but for the quiet courage it takes to keep showing up when your heart is heavy - I see you.

I see the unseen moments—the strength it takes to get out of bed each day to hold yourself together in public, to carry pain and joy that has no audience and no applause.

So let me say this, slowly and intentionally:

I am proud of you.🫂

27/03/2026

If you are still thinking, or believing that subjects around grief are private, shameful, unnecessary and a non-issue, I speak and say, you are living in an "old age" mindset, clinging to myths that hinder healing of yourself or those who experience losses.

These old-age views are becoming obsolete. The have been known to cause damage to the bereaved. I speak to stop this mind-set.

Grief is not a disease to be cured, we cannot medicalize grief: Grief is a natural response to loss: It needs community support.

But the question is, are communities grief literate? We need to shift towards a “grief literate society”.

I urge work places, organizations, schools, to foster environments that allow for open conversations on loss and grief: When these conversations are respected, those affected heal and integrate better after a loss.

Grief literacy empowers the community on differences or similarities of mental ill-health and grief.

Be better, bring grief literacy to your spaces.
Compassionate Leadership, the way to go.

23/03/2026

🗣️“After this your wedding day, we will await a child or children in the coming months”
🗣️“Why don’t you have a child; it has been 3 years since we attended your wedding”

How do couples feel when they are addressed this way on their wedding day or months/years later?
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With the above situation, compassionate leadership says that before you open your mouth to say something that you think is counsel, or concern, that you stop and think

“is this in my place to give it or ask of it”⛔️

This means you hold your words or share them with sensitivity as you honor the person you are addressing.

➡️In the above matter, compassionate leadership acknowledges that the best time for a couple to have children is when they are ready, not when you want them to have.

➡️Compassionate leaders acknowledge that having children is a personal decision that does not require public demand or discussions from anyone outside a union/marriage.

➡️Compassionate leaders do not violate boundaries, or disregard a couple’s right to privacy and decisions, for planning their family.

➡️Compassionate leadership emphasizes that questioning newly married couples about when they will have children is intrusive and has potential for anxiety and shame in the event of delayed conception or infertility.

As communities, families or leaders, please guard the hearts and minds of those around you by thinking compassionate leadership, and avoid intrusion and invasion.

21/03/2026

This week, JoyceSpeaks was at a work environment, speaking on Loss, Grief and Returning back to work after loss.

Grateful for institutions that are opening doors for these conversations👏. Such conversations provide bereavement care as a critical retention strategy that fosters loyalty, reduces turnover, and maintains productivity by supporting employees through one of life's most challenging experiences.

A sub-topic LONELINESS was placed on the table.
"We are always around our staff, how can they possibly say they are lonely when they return to work"

Loneliness after loss does not always mean you are alone, or isolated by others. The bereaved also self-isolate for many reason. Self-isolation can be a way to “preserve themselves”

Loneliness after loss is frequently an internal experience of being misunderstood rather than a physical state of being alone. While bereavement can involve isolation, this deep sense of loneliness often stems from the gap between the mourner’s new complex reality and the inability of those around them to comprehend it.

18/03/2026

What do you do when your corporate client right in front of you suddenly dissolves into a puddle of tears - and you don't have a clue about what comes next? How do you make them feel less embarrassed?
-----

✍️
The expectation from anyone that someone (human being) does not break down after a loss is unrealistic and a sign of a lack of grief literacy. We all have feelings, but we are not our feelings.
Who we are remains!

I hold space and meet them right where they are. I keep myself centered. I don’t fix them, but wait for us to move forward into the session.

12/03/2026

Those difficult and necessary questions/conversations we must have.

How do we intentionally support parents and families with children or loved ones in palliative care?

Their grief begins upon the diagnosis of a life-limiting illness and continues as an ever-present companion throughout the illness and after the death of a loved one.

End of Life Grief.
Topic today in Kisumu.

09/02/2026

Do you have wellness sessions in your organisation?

Would you include grief literacy?

Have your staff lost a loved one; spouse, parent, child or someone very close?

Grief literacy at the workplace will provide you, employees and supervisors with tools, language, and empathy required to support colleagues through loss, reducing burnout, brain fog and improving their retention.

JoyceSpeaks Grief Literacy and Companionate Leadership Workshop focuses on normalizing grief conversations like bereavement support, grief support policies, etc

Your staff are the most important resource you have.

As an employer, organization, or institution please take your grief knowledge seriously by signing up for a Compassionate Leadership Grief Literacy Session for you and your staff..

Email
[email protected]

04/02/2026

When a family makes a request

“Please give us privacy as we grieve and mourn our loved one”

They are not asking that you isolate them.

Here are a few things they are communicating to you.

Address

Rhapta Road, Westlands
Nairobi

Website

facebook.com

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