- "That's about 25 years ago. I had an opportunity to go to the villages of Eldoret campaigning to help my husband, now President," she said.
- She said she noticed one woman who was sitting right in front of her, looking like she had not had breakfast, yet she gave her a good smile.
Image: FIRST LADY/TWITTER
First Lady Rachel Ruto says that the journey to founding her organisation Joyful Women (JoyWo) started a long time ago.
Speaking on Saturday during a Table Banking forum in Kibra in the company of US First Lady Jill Biden, Rachel said it began back in 1997 together with President William Ruto's journey to the National Assembly as MP for Eldoret North.
"That's about 25 years ago. I had an opportunity to go to the villages of Eldoret campaigning to help my husband, now President," she said.
Rachel said she was a young girl, about 27 years old, and had just gotten married.
"So I went as a wife and a mother to go meet the mothers and the youth and just to see what was happening and helping campaign," she said.
The First Lady said as she crisscrossed the villages asking for votes and met a particular group of women.
"They were seated, not very far from the road, about 50 of them, and I stopped to talk to them just asking for votes. But something different caught my attention," she recalled.
She said she noticed one woman who was sitting right in front of her, looking like she had not had breakfast, yet she gave her a good smile.
Rachel said that she said to herself that if her husband made it to Parliament, she would go back and do something for the women.
"Because what I saw was not very acceptable, because I was wondering if a mother comes from her house without shoes to come for that kind of a meeting, what was the situation at home?
"What about her children? And many things went round my head," she said.
After President Ruto won the Eldoret North seat, she pondered over how she would help the women as the wife of an MP.
"I kept wondering, and I kept talking to people, because for me, I was looking for sustainability for those women," she said.
Rachel said when she got a call about a banking system that a team of Kenyan economists had learnt about in Bangladesh and parts of Asia, she immediately knew that was the solution for the women.
"And so quickly, I called for a meeting with other women leaders, and I met the women under a tree and we started talking to them about table banking," she said.
Then on August 31, 2009, Joyful Women Organisation was born.
"It was named so because of that one woman that did not have shoes, had not had breakfast, yet had a good smile, just to say that sometimes in life, you may not have everything, but nobody can take that away from you."