Women and Girls of Kenya: Part 2

Everyone, I would like you to meet the Founder and Executive Director, of Malika Foundation & Center for Disadvantaged Girls, Kenya,  Phionah Musumba. I was so touched by her story, I decided to let her tell you in her own words, by sharing her email to me, with you. It is an example of, when you think that you had a hard life, there is someone else, that has had it worse. Here it is:

Dear Bobbie,

Thank you for showing an interest in our work. I will try to answer all your questions as exhaustively as possible.

1.  Since we have never had a single donor, except for one kind lady in England whose clothing store sponsors 2 of our students through high school, we don't have a bank account as we wouldn't be able to maintain it. I'm planning to open a bank account here, so that any monies donated to our Cause can be deposited there. 

The organizations I run, survive on the money that my husband and I make from his carpentry business and my freelancing odd jobs. I don't have a job as there are only 3 ways to get a job in Kenya; sleep with the boss, buy the job or know someone at the top. I failed in all three. I couldn't compromise my morals, am from very humble roots, so the two left were out too.

2.  I got married young. I was 17 years old, when I dropped out of my 11th grade in high school for lack of school fees. I had just sat my end year exams and since I had passed with flying colours, was enthusiastic about finishing my high school course the following year and going to university, just like a normal teenager would dream. My plans were to strive for the best result, to join the best university in order to lift my family from poverty.

With nothing but time on my hands, I met and moved in with my first boyfriend, who is my husband to date, in November of 1994. In 4 years, I was a mother of 2 very beautiful daughters, and life was so tough with no jobs. My husband was at that time a BSC Nursing student at the University of Nairobi, and the problems we faced at home had him drop out of school. 

Many were the times that I would look for soft stones, around where we stayed and give them to my eldest daughter Ashley to eat, after which I would give her a big cup of water to drink, just to stem the hunger in her stomach. She was 4 years old. Varlerie was eight months then, so I would put her to my breast to suckle, but since there was no milk forthcoming, she would cry, which forced me to give her a cup of water too. 

This would go on for days. It reached a point where I would strap Varlerie to my back and hold Ashley's hand, trekking for tens of kilometres to Umoja, my husband's aunty's place, where we would beg for some food. Depending on whether we got the food or not, we would then trek to Huruma, my sister's place, to try our luck. From there, and armed with whatever we would have amassed that day, we would then trek to Dandora Phase 1, where we would board a bus at 5 Kenya shillings, to take us the remaining journey to Dandora Phase 5, where we lived. 

When we got home, Ashley would fall into a heap due to tiredness, her little feet all swollen and blistered, and after giving her a bath, usually without soap, as that was a luxury that came after food, she would sleep until the next day. I would just feed her as she slept. The following day, she would be so sore that she would be unable to walk or do anything for up to 5 days. We would repeat the cycle again as soon as she could walk again. 

My husband felt so bad that he looked for a plane and a saw and said he was going to learn how to work with his hands. Things eased a bit. My husband was still learning to make furniture, so he did not have many customers. I told him that I needed to find something to do in order to help him, and we settled on a business. The problem was, we lacked the capital. 

I went to my sister's place and her husband lent me 2000 Kenya shillings, with which I started an onion business. While at the market, I would collect all the vegetables and fruits that traders threw away because they couldn't sell them, then take them home with me to cook for my family. I never told my husband I was doing this, because in spite of our poverty, he is a proud man, and I didn't want to make him feel inadequate.

In two weeks, I made enough losses to realize that business was not my thing at the time. I made up my mind to leave it all. That day as I was walking back home, having lost our only source of livelihood, I was hit by the reality that I would never succeed in life without an education. I toyed with the idea of going back to school, and by the time I got home, I had convinced myself that, that was indeed what I needed to do with my life. 

That night after the kids had gone to bed, full of trepidation over what his reaction would be, I told my husband about my idea to go back to school. I was so shocked when all he did was ask me if I was sure that was what I wanted. He borrowed the registration fee from his cousin, registered me for the final high school exams of 1999 and five years after I had left a classroom, I sat and passed my exams. It was not to end there. He found me a sponsor, who paid my college fees in a 3 year Mass Communication Diploma course. 

I gave birth to my first son, Alvin in 2002 and life got tougher for us, with a new mouth to feed. The Centre for Disadvantaged Girls started at around the same time, out of the need to help some girls I met, who had been sent home from school and were crying because they knew there was no money back home, yet they really needed to be in school as end of term  exams were underway. They did not need much, it was roughly half a dollar for both of them to pay and sit their exams.

I had one hundred Kenya shillings on me, and decided to give them fifty, which is what they needed. This was in Dandora in Nairobi. They sat and passed their exams for that term and were very happy. I looked around me and thought that if this is the city and such suffering abounded, then there was something I needed to do back home in rural Western Kenya.

 

I started buying school supplies, writing materials and sanitary pads, which I would take to my mother to give girls, because I lived in the city and was in college at the time.  I did this and helped pay small school levies for the girls who collected the school supplies from my mother for three years. 

Then on my graduation day, my son died in my arms, because we could not afford to take him to hospital for lack of money. Something snapped inside me when I lost my son. No mother need watch their children die due to poverty. 

My eldest sister soon died of HIV and AIDS related causes, leaving me with 4 children, on top of my three at the time and if nothing else could have convinced me, to do something with my time and resources for girls, that did. 

The Centre for Disadvantaged Girls was registered as a Community Based Organization with the government of Kenya in Vihiga, in 2009. In April this year, Malkia Foundation, which is a National NGO was born. We are now mandated by the government of Kenya, to work in 5 counties, Vihiga, Homa Bay, Nairobi, Rift Valley and Mombasa. With any luck, I plan to replicate what we are doing in my community of Vihiga, into all the other counties we are supposed to work in.

3. I have not had occasion to work with the Rotary Clubs in Kenya, except to watch or read about them in the news. Maybe if we had someone who would introduce us to them, we would know more.

4. We empower girls with educational opportunities in different schools in Vihiga County of Western Province of Kenya. We pay their school fees, their food in school, provide them with school uniforms, reading and writing material and a packet of sanitary towels every month, for those in their menses. Presently we have 327 girls in school. It is a huge number, which we manage through an agreement with the school heads not to send them out of school, and pay as per whatever we make.

This is the reason why am dreaming of buying 50 acres of land to build an all girls 60% STEM school where these poor girls will get a quality education for free, and we would still admit girls who would pay, to make the project sustainable. We plan to call it the Malkia School for Young Women Leaders. I also dream of a clinic, a community vocational training centre, and a radio and television station. 

The clinic would be to treat the community which can not afford regular government hospitals and dispensaries, which are crammed with corruption that forces even children under 5 years old, who are supposed to get treatment for free, to pay in order to access even the simplest of medical attention. The college will be for the young and teenage mothers and school dropouts who for one reason or another can not go back to school, in order for them to learn a trade for gainful or self employment. The radio and television stations would be to broadcast to the world, what happens at the grassroots level, which the mainstream media doesn't report due to political sycophancy.

5. You can do a lot. For one, thanks for donating your writing skills and helping to organize a fund raiser. I need a job. Desperately. I need an organization here that would believe in me enough to hire me to work for them in Kenya. Whatever capacity they need me to work for them in, I wouldn't mind. It could be to make their presence felt in Africa through a partnership with my organizations, hire me in their office in Kenya, if they have one. Whatever they offer, I will take.

My Ashley and Varlerie are sitting their final high school exams for one moth starting next week, and since I know they will pass, I need to be prepared for their college fees. I also have 14 other students who are sitting the same exams. They will need to be taken care of. 

Business has been going downhill since our present regime took office, so money is less and the cost of living is very high. You can also help us set up a 501 C 3 organization here to lessen the taxes and attract funders and donors into helping us. I am presently collecting donations of computers, printers, printing presses, laptops, sewing machines, tools, equipment and appliances for carpentry, masonry, hair and beauty, catering and hospitality industry, for our community college. We need the money with which to ship them home to Kenya. We will appreciate any and all the help we can get, and are also open to suggestion. 

I would be honored if you wrote about me for your blog. Thanks in advance for your patience and the time it takes to read all this.

Warmest regards,

Phionah Musumba

Founder/Executive Director
Malkia Foundation &
Centre for Disadvantaged Girls, Kenya

Everyone, next week, I will introduce you to the life, of the young girls in Kenya. I have helped Phionah start a account for the Malika Foundation.  Here is the link, if you are interested in donating. Even $5 can make a difference. 

http://www.gofundme.com/kenyagirls 

Everyone Have a Great Week!

Bobbie

XoXoXo