Climate activist, HIV-Aids warrior and anti-human smuggling advocate share their stories

As the world celebrates women this weekend, the Star spoke to three women who have made social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

MAKENNA MUIGAI, 17

Makenna Muigai does not have it figured out yet but she knows that there is an urgent need to restore our planet and everyone must act.

“Climate change is going to affect all of us, especially the youth. But often, we are taught that it is a future problem that other generations will handle,” she says.

Makenna did not dream about environmental conservation as a child, but the changes she witnessed in her surroundings, which she learned were a result of climate change, prompted her move.

She loves nature walks, but over time, the places she used to visit have changed. Some are completely gone.

“Wetlands are drying up. Plants are being replaced with buildings everywhere and poverty rates keep rising. We must be straining mother Earth,” she says.

A school project presented a perfect opportunity for Makenna to begin climate activism.  

She picked a topic on climate change and shot a five-minute video showing the beauty in nature, changes over time and how youths can apply waste hierarchy. 

“Recycle, reuse and reduce. The three Rs are the simplest action each one of you can take to make a change,” she advises in the video.

She sent the video out to organisations that deal with climate change, a move that saw her grow to fame when she joined Sweden’s Greta Thunberg at a news conference calling for more attention on the climate threats facing Africa.

Makena has partnered with other organisations and community activists to reach more members of the public and help educate the populations on her new passion.

She says the push to reduce climate change and deal better with its effects faces a myriad of challenges, especially where most believe it will happen in future.

Makenna’s mother, Faith Muigai, says her daughter’s work will help fulfil her passion in public health, a correlation she initially had trouble understanding.

“I did not understand her obsession with climate change until she sat me down to watch a panel discuss environmental issues. I then understood that her work would help mine. When the earth is healthy, so are its people,” she says.

Muigai understands that her daughter’s desire to create change will take time, but she believes that it will make a positive impact.

“It will take time since the Kenyan culture, like many other African cultures, put a value on education. Call for action might take more than the classroom,” she said.

Makenna says that it might be difficult getting Kenyan students to join #FridaysForFuture protests.

#FridaysForFuture is an environmental movement that encourages climate strike with pupils getting out of class every Friday to demand better policy change and action from the government.

“Education is highly valued here and parents sacrifice a lot to pay fees and send their children to school, so the idea of skipping school to protest is not seen positively,” she says.

Also, she says, the conservative culture of obedience and following rules makes protests such as climate strikes be viewed as rebellion.  

“We need to find Kenyan ways of calling for change and that is why young activists like me are out here today,” she says.

Today, she worries about the desert locust invasion in the country. The invasion has made food costs to rise and farmers to suffer huge losses. 

“We are aware that the locusts migrating into the country is due to climate change. The impact is already visible, but it might get worse if policymakers delay action. Tomorrow, it might be worse for us if we fail to act today,” she says.

 

STELLA BOSIRE, 34

Stella Bosire was on Thursday last week awarded by Queen Elizabeth II for her exemplary work in supporting women and girls living in poverty to access education, mentoring, human rights and reproductive health.

The medical doctor received the Commonwealth Points of Light Award from British High Commissioner Jane Marriott.

“This award represents one very iconic person in my life: my late mother. She survived domestic violence, poverty, social exclusion and stigma based on her HIV status,” she said.

The 34-year-old beat massive odds to become a doctor and open a foundation to support girls undergoing the same challenges she faced.

When she was in Standard 4, Bosire was sexually abused by her cousin who threatened to harm her mother if she told anyone about it.

To cover up her misery, she started abusing drugs and was always high on bhang even at Kibera Primary School where she attended.

“I was very aggressive and violent. It was survival of the fittest and in Standard 5, she was expelled from school,” she says.

Her ailing mother could not afford to take her to another school or feed her and her siblings.

During the day, they would roam the streets begging for food or collect plastics which they sold and bought food.

It was after such a mission one day that Stellah was gang-raped. She still remembers the face of one of them. After that incident, she says, she lost her childhood innocence for good.

After several months, her father appeared from ‘nowhere’ and enrolled her at Joseph Kangethe Primary School, where she continued smoking bhang and began to peddle it.

In her final year in primary school, Bosire’s ‘business’ was discovered and she was expelled once again. She couldn’t go back home so she remained on the streets.

“Together with other girls, we rented a house where we all lived; smoking and drinking cheap alcohol every day,” she says.

Bosire’s gang leader pushed her to write the KCPE exams and when she scored highly, her father took her to State House Girls High School, before she got a bursary.

After high school, Bosire went back home and got a job as a house girl in Lang’ata earning Sh3500 a month.

Mama Brian, her employer, realised how brilliant she was and offered to get her a better job.

She later introduced her to a journalist from Italy who was doing a documentary on HIV-Aids and orphans in Kibera.

“She requested me to show her around Kibera and introduce her to those infected and affected by the disease," she says.

When the cameras turned to her, Bosire told her story. It would be her big breakthrough. She received so many requests from people in Italy wanting to help.

Levi-Montalcini Foundation offered her placement at the University of Nairobi after she rejected a scholarship to Italy so that she could take care of her mother whose condition had worsened. In 2011 her mother succumbed to Aids-related complications during her final year of study.

Upon graduation with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 2012, she involved herself in mentorship, HIV and counselling.

Through Dr Stella Bosire Foundation, she supports over 20,000 women affected or infected with HIV-Aids as well as victims of sexual abuse.

She is a board member of the HIV-Aids tribunal and is also the co-executive director of UHAI-EASHRI, Africa’s first indigenous fund supporting nearly 200 civil society activist organisations that address issues of sexuality, health and human rights in East Africa.

RAHMA WAKO, 52

Often, Rahma Wako’s days start at the Kiamaiko market, where both goats and humans have a price.

This is perhaps the largest market supplying goat meat to Nairobi residents.

But with the livestock transported in lorries are human beings on transit to other countries.

Human smuggling is a more lucrative trade and earns the traffickers more than the goats could give them.

“Most of the people being sold are Ethiopians and Somalis,” Rahma says.

When she receives a tip of human trafficking at the market, she alerts the authorities and other human rights organisations before embarking on a rescue mission.

“Most of them tell me they were being taken to South Africa or Arab countries where they have been promised jobs,” she says.

However, from reports documented by organisations working to stop human trafficking and media houses, such people are sold as modern slaves and work under horrible conditions with meagre pay.

The 52-year-old very famously known in Mathare as Mama Rahma believes nothing can stop her quest for promoting women's rights.

In her neighbourhood, she is also known to rescue young girls from early marriages and for her fight to eradicate female genital mutilation.

Her passion for women issues is based on her own experiences a young Borana girl, bred in the city but with parent's strong cultural beliefs.

Rahma underwent female genital cutting when she was only six in a procedure she says she will remember to her death. 

“I was cut and sewn. After one week, they used a hot iron rod to heat the place where they cut. It took 40 days to heal. During the time, I could not go to the toilet properly or even walk upright,” she says.

When she was 12, Rahma was married off to a 68-year-old man and forced to drop out of school.

“I left school to take care of a man I barely knew and start a family with him. I survived years of physical pain and emotional torture,” she says.

Every time she gave birth, her mother-in-law took away the children and her husband would make her pregnant again.

“My husband used to beat me every day but still demanded babies from me which I gave him religiously. He beat me so badly that I still wonder how I survived,” she says.

She recalls her first pregnancy in 1988, where she delivered twins in excruciating pain. 

Six months later, she gave birth to another set of twins but this time decided she could not take it anymore.

Wako ran away one evening, after another thorough beating. All she wanted was justice but she knew the police would not grant her wish.

She headed for the Makadara Law Courts and sought the judge’s attention. That move led to her redemption.

“The pain was too much. My religion equates contraceptives to killing so the beatings went on, and so did the pregnancies. I did not have a say in my home; the rich old man had settled my bride price,” she says. 

“The judge ordered my husband's arrest and asked him to bring back my children. Then I asked for a divorce, which I was granted,” she says.

This was the beginning of another horrible episode in her life. It gave her a desire for change.

She was hosted by a neighbour but was forced to hide all day as the community loathed divorce.

“At night, we came out to brew alcohol. But when I was almost due (to give birth), I gave up that life. I started visiting schools and the teachers gave me two hours to talk to girls aged between 10 and 15,” she says.

Today, Rahma has many ambassadors in her community who work with her to help defend the rights of women. She has also won many awards in promoting women's rights.

(edited by O. Owino)