Mo Farah wraps up Kenya visit with high-level meeting at State House

International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Goodwill Ambassador Sir Mo Farah ended his three-day visit to Kenya with a meeting at State House with President William Ruto on Tuesday.

“The world must work in concert to find solutions that make migration positive rather than negative. Migration should increasingly be seen as a search for opportunities even when movement is forced by conflict or the ravages of climate change,” President William Ruto said on Twitter (X) after meeting with the four-time Olympic champion.

Mo Farah, 41, was accompanied to State House by a delegation from the IOM, which included the IOM Kenya Chief of Mission, Sharon Dimanche.

Neither the State House nor IOM shared more information about Farah’s meeting with President Ruto.

Farah’s engagements with IOM Kenya during his three-day visit to the country have been relatively low-key, with the media not getting a chance to interview him when he visited Mathare on Sunday and Kakuma in Turkana County.

A press briefing that was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon was cancelled on the last day, making his visit to State House the final activity of his visit to Kenya.

IOM, which had described Farah’s visit to Kenya as a “landmark visit” in a press release on Friday last week, announced the six-time world champion as its first Goodwill Ambassador in November last year.

“His journey is a living testament to never giving up and striving for the best. Together, we advocate for sport as a transformative tool for migrants and communities,” Amy Pope, the Director General of the IOM, said in a post on Twitter (X) in November last year when announcing Mo Farah’s as the organisation’s first Goodwill Ambassador.

Amy Pope also described Farah as “a beacon of inspiration” in a video she shared that accompanied the post.

The announcement came slightly over a year after Farah revealed in a BBC documentary released in July 2022 that he was taken to the United Kingdom illegally when he was nine years old and forced to work as a domestic servant.

In the documentary, Farah also revealed that his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin and he had arrived in the UK from Djibouti with the help of a woman who he had never met and who gave him the name Mohammed Farah.

Interestingly, after Farah and his wife Tania Nell welcomed twin daughters called Aisha (named after Farah’s mother) and Amani in 2012, the Somali-born athlete gave the name Hussein to their son, who was born in 2015.

Farah was later put in the care of a foster Somali family when he was 12 years old after he confided in Alan Watkinson, his PE teacher at Feltham Community College, where Farah had enrolled as an 11-year-old, about his true identity, background, and the family that was forcing him to work as a domestic servant.

With Watkinson’s help, Farah was able to apply for and receive British citizenship in July 2000 under the name Mohammed Farah.

The confession contradicted Farah's earlier claim that he arrived in the UK from Somalia with his parents as a refugee. Despite obtaining his citizenship under dubious circumstances, the Home Office later assured Farah that he would retain his UK citizenship, based on the assumption that he was a child at the time of his deceptive citizenship acquisition.

Farah’s trafficking to the UK separated him from his mother and siblings, including a twin brother named Hassan, until he later reunited with them through the assistance of a member of the Somali community in London.

It is on the backdrop of that revelation that Sir Mo Farah became IOM’s first Goodwill Ambassador and, as a survivor of human trafficking, IOM had publicised his visit to Kenya as “a return to the region of his roots to witness first-hand the impact of IOM’s humanitarian and development work.”.

Mo Farah met with migrants, local authorities, civil society, and other stakeholders in Kenya to raise awareness and advocate for the needs and aspirations of migrants, as well as the transformative power of sport as a tool of integration.

Indeed, Farah’s activities during his visit to Kenya, his first as the IOM Goodwill Ambassador, echoed the statement he gave when accepting the role in November last year.

“Today is a big day for me. I am really excited to start a new journey, one that is just not about running on the track and winning medals. It is about something bigger. I am really honoured to be the Goodwill Ambassador for IOM,” Farah said.

On his first day Sir @Mo_Farah met with youth & migrant athletes at Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) in Komarock, Nairobi.#ScoreWithMo4Migration #OnTheMove pic.twitter.com/oTpXK7ukdx

— IOM Kenya (@IOMKenya) April 21, 2024

On Sunday, which marked the start of his three-day visit, Farah launched a digital library, planted trees, interacted with over 200 urban migrants, and participated in the Mo Farah Cup, which in a way was a tribute to his childhood dreams before the athletics bug bit him—that of being a winger for his favourite football team, English Premier League team Arsenal.

On his second day in #Kenya @UNmigration Global Goodwill Ambassador @Mo_Farah witnessed the importance of sports to young people in the migrant community. As he visited Kakuma, Turkana County, advocating for sports for inclusion & development#IOMOntheMove #ScoreWithMo4Migration pic.twitter.com/BCN1zxAxmq

— IOM Kenya (@IOMKenya) April 23, 2024

The second day of his visit featured a trip to the Kakuma-Kalobeyei resettlement in Turkana County, where, as IOM said in a post on Twitter (X), Farah witnessed the importance of sports to young people in the migrant community and advocated for sports for inclusion and development. While participating in a symbolic sprint, Farah also shared words of encouragement with the youth, migrants, and refugees there.

Farah then concluded the third and final day of his visit with a meeting at State House with President William Ruto.

According to the IOM, Kenya hosts over one million migrants and over half a million refugees who are affected by conflict, climate change, and economic hardships from across the continent.

With the emerging trends in climate-induced mobility in the region, IOM reckons that Kenya, as a country of origin, transit, and destination, is playing a crucial role in ensuring the protection of migrants and facilitating regular pathways for all, especially young people.