Sophie Ngugi - A Child of the universe

What a contradiction! Mothers are not girls, and mothers are not students! But alas that’s the reality, in Kenya and other developing countries. I couldn’t help thinking about the contradictions in life where a child is supposed to be bringing up a child as I interacted with some teenage mothers mostly from Mukuru slums in Nairobi today. I got a call on Thursday this week (2nd July 09) from a Lucy a mother of over 100 girls, or is grandmother to as many children? I met Lucy earlier this year in the course of my work. Eventually we organized for a motivation talk and my friend Catherine accompanied me. While we interacted with these young women, or rather girls, many thoughts went through my head which I kept pondering about and posing some questions to the others as we did our best to have a few words of advice to these girls. Looking at the 50 girls, there was nothing peculiar or unique about them. They were looking smart, happy and they were no different from other 12 year ol...

Some article in the East African Standard caught my attention last week (Thursday 24th June 2009) ‘women Women team breaks myth to win boat race.’ This really caught my attention as I had not visualized a boat ride by a woman, let alone a competition! May be it is because I have not heard this associated with women. The paper went on to describe the joyful event that graced the community near Lake Victoria. Children, women and men cheered wildly as the teams rowed their boats in stiff competition. There was rhythmic drumming as the women paddled swiftly and vigorously. At the end of the one-kilometre boat race, Kasua Women Group from Gumbe, Samia District emerged the winners, defeating four other teams…needless to point out, male teams. I was impressed by the message that was sent out by these nine agile women aged between 20 and 45 yrs of age, the young and not so young I would say. They had not only broken the myth to participate in a sport considered to be a masculine sport, but ...