( CNN ) -- I had many conversations with Nelson Mandela , although I had not met him . In my family 's tiny shack in Nairobi 's Kibera slum , my one-way exchanges with the great man kept me going . Mandela survived 27 years of prison ; maybe I would make it out , too . Mandela became South Africa 's first black president in 1994 , when I was 10 years old . In Kibera , people celebrated and talk circulated the streets about this man , but I did n't see how his story connected to mine until much later . I was struggling too hard simply to survive . At 10 , I was on and off the streets . I flitted from house to house , unable to live at home with my mother because my stepfather had threatened to kill us both if I tried to come home . I knew I was born poor , and believed I was fated to die poor . This was my prison . I needed a role model , but in Kibera , these were in short supply . At 16 , I felt the pressure from gangs and drugs -- while fighting the temptation to drink my misery away and to find temporary comfort with women , like I saw my friends do . Opinion : A white South African 's memories of Mandela . Even as the shadow of AIDS spread , I saw no reason not to die young , because I had nothing to live for . Our lives in the slums seemed to take a friend every day . Police shot my friend Boi ; they thought he looked like a criminal . My childhood friend Calvin hanged himself . His suicide note said what I felt : `` I just ca n't take it anymore . '' Both of my sisters were raped and impregnated as teenagers . People seemed to fade and disappear . To live was the exception . I am now 29 , and all but two of my closest childhood friends are dead . It was Mandela who saved my life . A visiting American gave me two books . I had never gone to formal schools , but I had learned to read and write with the help of a kind priest . The American gave me a collection of speeches by the Rev . Martin Luther King Jr. and Mandela 's `` Long Walk to Freedom . '' It was Mandela 's book that spoke to me . I could n't put it down . Here was someone whose life I could somehow picture . For the first time in my life I saw I had a choice . I could either submit to the degradations of poverty , to the prevailing hopelessness , or I could start my own long walk . I started small , using 20 cents from my pay at a factory job to buy a soccer ball . I organized young people to work together in an organization that has grown to include a school for girls , a health clinic and a community services project . This year we will serve 50,000 people . Yet as I look at the larger structural problems of urban poverty in my country , I feel my work has just begun . Despite my doubts and concerns , I would begin and end every day with a private conversation with Mandela . I 'd ask him what he 'd do when his problems seemed insurmountable . I shared with him my triumphs , and I read every speech of his I could find . But as I grew older I began to wonder about the power and perils of being a living hero . Mandela was , for me and for my continent , more than a person . He is the emblem of progress . He came through poverty and struggle yet did not allow it to embitter him . Instead he seemed emboldened by a sense of urgency . Why Mandela has six names . My fear is that we become too comfortable with his legacy -- content with honoring what Mandela has stood for that we forget to carry forward his sense of urgency . The journey to freedom in my country , Kenya , and in Mandela 's own country , South Africa , is far from over . On a recent visit to Johannesburg , I spoke for an hour with three young men about the crushing challenges of their lives in one of South Africa 's burgeoning slums . They are not alone . Mandela accomplished so much , but worldwide an ever-growing gap between rich and poor and mounting inequality threatens all for which he fought . I will still talk to Mandela , and will wonder what he might do . How he might have organized another movement to take Africa forward . These are conversations we must all begin to have . We have lost him , and must recognize the need for a next generation of selfless and driven leaders . For me , Mandela 's example will always stand as a reminder of what is possible when conviction faces injustice , of the work that still remains unfinished , and of the long road ahead . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Kennedy Odede .
At 10 , Kennedy Odede was on and off the streets in a sprawling Nairobi , Kenya , slum . He was extremely poor and believed he was fated to die poor -- this was his prison . Odede 's life turned around when he read Nelson Mandela 's books and speeches . The man who had been imprisoned for 27 years became an activist against apartheid South Africa.