W-Women Globally

Mercy Adhiambo is 21 and already a hero. Even if in her own country – Kenya – it’s not easy to become a hero once you are female. But her story wouldn’t be noticed without Kim. Kim and Mercy. Mercy and Kim. Two women who met each other through the Web and began their friendship from the first exchanged word. Their story is a great example of what women friendship and support is all about. 

Hear Mercy’s voice:

A Little Girl in Kenya

‘I grew up in the village of Kisumu, Kenya, along the shores of Lake Victoria, in a household of two boys and two girls. Right from childhood, I knew that I was different. Different because I was a girl - and girls in my community were nothing.
Young as I was at that time, it had been drilled over and over in my mind that as a girl child I was a piece of property; being nurtured for my future role as dowry earner to my parents.
Being the first girl in my family, I was brought up by my parents up knowing that I am headed for motherhood. My father never saw it important to educate me. I was after all just a woman who would get married and my father did not want to waste his resources educating “somebody’s wife” – as he used to put it. It took a lot of struggle from me to make it to standard eight and sit for my Kenya Certificate of Primary Education.
My father thought it would be better to educate my brothers instead.

A  ’Sheep’ ?

In my community, girls are believed to be brainless. It is common to hear people comparing women with sheep, they say women cannot excel anywhere, and they have to be led and they will follow blindly like sheep.
I remember going to school without school uniforms, without shoes, all this while hoping that one day I shall overcome. I had this great desire to launch into a flight for higher grounds – and one event changed me. I remember I was in standard four, about ten years old, and I was not so sure of my future in school. My father was insisting that I should go to school less often and stay at home to do other things that he thought benefited a woman to be better than just “sitting in class and counting bottle tops” like he used to say.
So, on this day, after beating most boys in my class, my Science teacher offered to see me through primary school…so it meant I did not have to worry about pestering my father to pay my school fees. My journey had begun!

The Journey

So when I passed my Primary examinations, my father was advised by others not to educate me further…a girl should only have little education, nothing more. Educating a girl is like poring water on a dry well. It never bears fruits. An educated girl will only bring trouble to the community because educated girls refuse to get married….and my father heeded their advice. My science teacher could not afford to pay for my secondary education.
I took the initiative and applied for a bursary from the Constituency Bursary Fund (CBF), a fund that has been set aside by the Government to assist the needy and it is there that I came face to face with open corruption from the people employed at the offices. They made sexual demands against me to grant me the bursary while some of them asked for bribes. Being thirteen years old then, sometimes I would get overwhelmed and I almost gave up. Through persistence, I managed to sail through and I sat for my KCSE examinations in 2005 and passed highly. This proves that women are not brainless. We too can succeed if given a chance.
Although I passed highly and qualified to join university, I could not afford to pay the fee that is required at the University. But I was happy with the progress I had made. I became the first girl in my village to ever go through secondary school successfully. It was no mean achievement! With nobody to look up to, with nobody to encourage me, but with my deep will to move forward, I had made it! And I wanted other girls to experience what I had done. I wanted to encourage other girls in my village that women are not sheep.

A Rebel

It is why I joined a Community Based Organization called Kisumu Core Association to fight and advocate for the rights of the marginalized, particularly the girl child. This was perhaps the greatest challenge I have ever battled with. My community members saw me as a rebel, as a girl who was out to mislead other girls and discourage them from pursuing their main goal in life – marriage.
Working for such a small organization that did not have resources, I felt that the whole world and the girl child needed to know about the challenges that the girls go through. I wanted to address these issues in all possible ways, but since I was a mere eighteen year old girl with nothing to offer the girls in terms of materials and money, I decided to use my writing. I started writing about the girl child, and all the marginalized, not only in Kenya, but in Africa.
Then came the need for me to start working because at that time my sisters were about to join secondary school and I found a job as a house help in one of the cyber cafés in town. And it is there that I’ve learnt how to use the computer, and I’ve been able to type my stories…

Kim

Through the Web I found the “Glass Woman Prize Contest” and decided to submit my stories there. And suddenly one of them was selected as a top contender…I did not know my life was about to change.

Kim Sisto Robinson contacted Beate Sigriddaughter, the organizer of the contest, as she liked my story, and when Beate passed the message to me, I decided to thank Kim, although I did not know her. Since then, we started communicating, and she was struck by my desire to continue going to school. Together with her friends, they volunteered to pay for my school fee by raising funds and it is thanks to them that I am currently in college, taking a course in Journalism.

Mercy with her grandmother's ...neighbour - Pres. Barack Obama's grandmother. Kisumu, Kenya

The Future and the Freedom

I always wanted  to go to college and graduate to show other girls in my village that a girl can also get education.

I want to show them that girls have brains. In my village, no girl has ever been to college.

I want to be the first one to shine a light on them.

It is possible…and I want them to learn this through me.

Upon graduation, I will become a writer. Then, I will use my writings to educate girls. I will use it as a tool to educate and encourage them to press on.

I also want to share with the whole world what the Girl child in my community goes through.

I believe in freedom, and the only way we can set the girl child free is through education. And since this is the passion I have always had, I hope that I will be able to continue with my education and do what I have always wanted to do – to liberate the girl child from the repugnant cultural beliefs and practices that seeks to demean and oppress her. I believe that through education and sensitization, this can be done’.

Read Mercy’s stories chosen for the “Glass woman Prize Contest” finale: “The Untold Story”, “The Rich River”

Read the exchange of thoughts between Kim and Mercy at Kim’s blog:  A Profound Awakening, Out of Africa, 6 Degrees of Separation,