Local women in a global village in a world safe space

Last week I was conducting a leadership training workshop for grassroots women community leaders in Rift Valley region in Kenya. The training was unique in that there was language barrier! A few of the women could not understand English or Kiswahili the official languages in Kenya and we, the facilitators, could not understand the Pokot and Maasai languages that these women were conversant with. However it ended up being a very interesting training. Some of the participants volunteered to be translating to their colleagues and hence we had to keep asking questions to make sure that the women who were affected by the language barrier were not left behind. It was aha moment for me when one of these women stood up to explain how she was going to make sure that, women in her community got information on the constitution draft being discussed in Kenya as well as urge them to register as voters. Despite the language barrier one could not help but see the passion in the eyes of this elderly women, and when the translation was done. She had a group of women who assisted each other in communal farming and since the season for cultivating was on, she would share this information while they tilled the land! What a practical way of using knowledge.

Words can not be enough to express how touched I felt to realise that these women, really got what was being discussed and was going to put it into practice in the most practical way I she could think of. Such women inspire me to go further, to represent their voices where they may not, and to offer leadership that will impact on them down at the grassroots. Through the sharing from the women during this training and others that followed, it has been quite evident that women have been making huge impacts in the community yet these efforts often remain invisible and the issues of women are often put in the periphery. Women are often not getting affirmation on their work and hence Pulsewire has offered me a space to be a voice for the voiceless and to bring into visibility the issues of women in the region.

Women are as diverse as they are many, the issues that face them are as unique as the women are unique, and being women brings them together. The voices of women are often unheard, as they toil and make a difference in the community and in the world sometimes their great work goes to the grave with them as a few neighbours are left to murmur about them for a while, and then they are gone, not forgotten but also not discovered. As a board member the voice of the woman in the remote part where there is no internet, yet the community women working in these areas have a voice, which they may not put on paper but can speak out about.

My vision is to see the voices of women connected online and identifying the threads that women at global level need to pursue in order to make the voices of women in different corners of the world heard. I therefore bring a perspective of women from Kenya, from Africa in the global village online. While working in different communities the power of a woman’s voice has been quite real. My presence in the board will therefore amplify the voices of women who would otherwise not be heard. I will ensure that the women’s voices are represented in the boardroom by ensuring that the emerging issues and trends from the region are brought to visibility and ways of organising around the same by the online community. I therefore bring about critical experience to the board, a global village in a world safe space.

Quote: "The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race." (Susan B. Anthony)