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After surviving attempted rape when she was only five years old, Pendo Jolline now fights sexual gender-based violence, be it in her profession as an advocate or through her music as a gospel artiste 

Jolline Katama, popularly known as Pendo Jolline in the gospel music circles is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya with special interests in Sexual Gender Based Violence and Child protection.

She is a pastor and gospel artiste, an owner of a Gospel Recording Label- Custodian Music and a model. She has received honourary recognitions by international Nongovernmental Organisations (NGO) and universities as one of the artistes advocating against gender based violence through music.

She was nominated for the Annual Pwani Golden Awards 2021. She is also a TV host at Chadi TV.

Under her recording label, she has released songs such as Usifiwe, Jomba and Godfidence, which have earned her a lot of popularity in the industry.

Her brother Kitole Kenda, also a Kenyan renowned entertainer and entrepreneur based in Europe has played a huge role in her music career and fashion interests as the younger sister also models for his cloth line ­— Kenda Apparels, amongst others.

Unforgetable errand

And as Kitole shares, Jolline is the second born in a family of four originally from Mtwapa, Kilifi County. Born to their father Manasseh Katama a businessman and mother Dr Christine Kasichana, a doctorate holder in food Science.

“We grew up in Mtwapa, we spent our early years in a middle-class estate in the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) now Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro) headquarters, later moving into the then developing ghetto neighbourhood Mikanjuni on our own piece of land and slowly built our privately owned home/house. This change was not easy at all, to say the least,” shares Kitole about their childhood.

As a child, Jolline was quiet and kept to herself. However, she was active and cheerful when around people she knew… until something happened that made her build a wall around herself and become rebellious for some time.

When she was about five years of age, their mother had sent them to the shop, which was a distance from their home. The road to the shop passed through an abandoned house in the middle of a mini-forest.

As children, these trips also involved other personal errands—while Kitole rode his tyre, he left his sister behind who was also picking grass to make herself a doll. While she was at it, a group of about five men approached and grabbed her and attempted to rape her.

While Kitole had gone a long distance, he noticed that his sister was not behind him and decided to go back for her— he found the men right in the middle of their dirty business. They dropped her and ran away and he carried her home.

Voice of reason

This is an experience that traumatised Jolline for a long time, and it is just one of the attempted rape cases that she survived. This opened her eyes to the societal rot called rape and sexual gender-based violence and she made it a lifetime goal to fight for victims of Sexual Gender Based Violence and also fight for children’s protection.

The 30-year-old gospel musician attended SOS Kindergarten, Nyali before joining Ganjoni Primary School, Mombasa for her primary education. She later joined Murray Girls High School, Taita Taveta and transferred to Mtwapa Elite Academy where she sat her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams before joining the University of Nairobi as a law student. 

“She was a joyful child. Her musical journey started in church… singing in Seventh-day Adventist and Methodist churches at the age of eight. It is our mum who helped nurture her talent forcing her to sing in church and threaten her if she didn’t. Later, her talent was nurtured through music classes, grandma and I,” shares Kitole. 

As her big brother and also a top musician, Kitole taught her the art of song writing and being the fast learner that she is, she picked up the pieces, put them together and created her own style.

Her breakthrough song as he shares was Usifiwe and Jomba. The songs received massive airplay on mainstream media, especially on Sunday. Jomba received recognition by NGOs such as  Power Action Changers and Rotary Club, and  University of Nairobi in collaboration with UN Women, as a song for advocacy against gender-based violence.

“What makes her songs unique is that she does her gospel music pouring all her soul, skills, experience, truth and the Word, a rare combination to be found in this generation. She creates her music through tunes straight from her head rather than writing down the lyrics… she just sings, hums and fills up line after line as she goes till the song is done. Sometimes she uses musical instrument and sometimes, she doesn’t. Jolline arranges her music chord by chord while playing her base guitar as she goes along. My favourite song from is Faith is all I have,” shares the proud brother.

Guilty pleasures

Her strongest trait as he shares is her courage and focus. She is focused to a fault and she can stand up to anyone, no matter what size or what position in society they hold.

“I think this is useful in her law and advocacy career as well as entertainment. This inspires me as a person as well. I have always felt that I should be a better example as a first born, from a young age. This has kept me going, when I see my siblings doing good for themselves,” he intimates.

When she is not busy with her work, you will catch her playing bass guiter and singing or reading books, in her case it is mostly the Bible. Unlike many models that have turned most finger foods to taboos, Kitole intimates that her sister’s guilty pleasure is actually snacking, junk food, and her favourite meal being hot honey glazed chicken and guacamole. Her petite body is simply God given.

For Jolline, there is no telling where she will be in the next five years.

“I can’t really tell. All I can say is that she is self driven and focused to a fault. So the future is definitely limitless for her. Great untold things lie underway in wait for her,” he says.