Approximately 130 Million girls the world over are not enrolled in schools. War, forced early marriage, harmful cultural practices, poverty, teenage pregnancy, domestic labor, violence, sexual exploitation, trafficking, disabilities, natural calamities and because they are girls are some of the underlying reasons why this shocking statistics is!
I was born and raised a feminist! I am passionate about the law and in particularly in addressing social injustices that affect women and adolescent girls globally. I grew up with 3 older sisters in Nairobi in a very protected environment and only found out about patriarchy, gender stereotypes and norms as a teenager in a boarding school while attending high school. I remember my physics teacher trying to dissuade me in my senior years from pursuing physics since I was a girl and was not scoring as high in the subject. I remember him asking rhetorically what possible use hydraulics and mechanics would be to me in the future. I was equally more confuse when some of my classmates who were all girls agreed with this absurdity and even accepted the limitations we had been put over our heads, because we were girls!
I recognize the privilege and freedoms I have been raised by. My fierce aunties were leaving their dreams as defined by their passions and goals and my parents had never once limited my sisters or my own ambition. I started my own informal mentorship program called Sisterhood and a blog for high school girls as soon as I graduated high school because I knew I had to give other girls what I grew up knowing as normal. I knew other girls had to be affirmed, encouraged, mentored, and cheered on just as I was. I realized that this was not as commonplace at home as I envisioned and decided to pay it forward. My grandmother, mother and aunties have all been involved in this project as mentors for over 1000 high school girls in Murang’a county in Kenya.
I dream of a world where girls and women have equal access to education, opportunities, and resources. I dream of a world where injustices that girls and women face are not normalized and hidden under the veil of culture, religion, or tradition. I dream of a world where girls are allowed to be girls and are encouraged to pursue their dreams with vigor and energy because they can and deserve it!