Samburu girls celebrate being able to attend high school.
By Ervin Dyer and Kimberly Gonxhe
Our bus rumbles down the narrow dirt road to enter the campus of the modest Falling Waters boarding school. We roll pass a series of wooden signs that speak to the values the co-ed school aims to instill: humility, hard work, responsibility are three. Soon, under a bright Kenyan sun, we gather in a nearby field with 11 of the girls who study here. The girls have on their uniforms – green skirts, white socks and gray sweaters – but something else binds them, too: they are among the “rescued.”
They are girls from the Samburu peoples who have been lifted out of situations where they were raped, abandoned, faced the pain of female genital mutilation (FGM), and the forced betrothal to men old enough to be their grandfathers As we sit in a circle, shoulder to shoulder with the girls, our group leader, seminary teacher Kimberly Gonxhe, encourages them to share their stories.
First, nothing moves but the wind.
Soon, six of the girls – one by one – summon the incredible courage to stand, say their name, and share with strangers a past that had shamed them into silence and stunted the life chances for many. Their eyes cast to the ground, they whisper. It is not easy to move past cultural traditions that have been practiced by your mother, and her mother, and all the mothers before them.
What we witness in this sunny field is transformative. How did we get here?
Our journey was set in motion in 2006, when Gonxhe, a Master of Divinity student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, won a fellowship to study “Women’s Issues in a Global Context.” Gonxhe had come to realize her mission was to advocate for the most marginalized in society. And, in marginalized societies, women and girls are at the bottom of the pole. This was reinforced as the study took Gonxhe around the world, including stops in Singapore, Indonesia, India. She also went to Kenya, where she was introduced to the beautiful Maasai and Samburu people.
In every society, there are cultural positives and negatives. While admiring the warmness of the cultural hospitality and the ingenious beauty and craftpersonship in their beadwork, Gonxhe also heard the voices of women who had fled FGM and other social ills that prevented them and their children from being educated.
Gonxhe, a Western “outsider” left the experience deeply moved by the courage and tenacity of the Samburu and Maasai women. She knew that enduring change would have to be organic, sprouting from “inside” the culture.
Soon, she began to seek out experienced, indigenous gender justice leaders, engaging them in dialogue on culturally relevant actions: how to talk to elders, how to share with local women, how not to demonize people making choices connected to centuries of traditional practices.
On Twitter in 2011, Gonxhe met Josephine Kulea, a bright 26 year old who was traveling all across Samburu County rescuing girls and scaffolding the Samburu Girls Foundation, an infrastructure to support them. Since then, they have hosted each other in their respective countries and Gonxhe soon joined the foundation’s U.S. board of directors.
The foundation’s work helps to “rescue” girls and place them in schools while seeding healthy community alternatives.
Such countercultural work is not easy. No one can do it alone. Partnerships are needed with the government to not only change policies and laws but also to advocate that local police are equipped and held accountable to enforce the laws. Given the vast territorial expanse and harsh terrain, efficient transportation and communication systems are needed. When girls are rescued, they need after-care and social services as well as the resources and supplies for boarding school and a place to stay during school breaks. School tuition fees need to be paid, as do salaries for all those working tirelessly to make a difference.
Gonxhe wanted others to witness this work up close. In June 2016, she took a cohort of 13, including her two young children, to Kenya to build these partnerships. While the story of every “rescue” is unique, here is one – shared in our circle – that represents the struggle for so many. We will call her Sara. She grew up herding sheep for her family—a responsibility that often disrupted her primary education. At 11, she discovers her father has pledged her to be married to a man four times her senior as a third wife. She is immediately withdrawn from school and taken by her mother to the circumciser where she is held down by village women in unsanitary conditions and brutally mutilated. She is then married off, taken away from her family and village to live with this man and his co-wives and their children while still a child herself. She is forced to clean, cook, fetch water, have sex, and do what she is told. She barely knows how to write her own name let alone read and have awareness of any other world than her own.
Her story finds its way to the Samburu Girls Foundation, which works with local police to rescue Sara. A medical examination reveals that she is two months pregnant. The nuns down the road care for her child and she is taken to boarding school while undergoing counseling and given a second chance at a full life. The husband and parents face legal charges as FGM and marriage under the age of 18, while widely practiced, are against Kenyan law.
Under the sun at Falling Waters, Sara and the other girls are encouraged to turn from their past and look toward their future. Tell us your dreams, says Gonxhe, as she hugs each girl. There’s power, she says, in being able to give it voice.
The aspirations pour forth. “I want to be … a lawyer, a doctor, a nurse, a judge, a journalist…” We applaud each and every hope. More so, moved by their courage, we are inspired to collect enough tuition to ensure that the 11 girls can remain in school for another term. Our collection – our promise at partnership – showcases how American allies, working with local leaders and being sensitive to cultural context, can help Kenyan girls awaken from their worst nightmares and realize they are all standing in a sunny field of dreams.
Kimberly Gonxhe is director of the Metro-Urban Institute at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a women’s rights advocate. Ervin Dyer, PhD, is a writer/editor with the University of Pittsburgh Office of Communication. Visit: www.samburugirls.foundation