FREEDOM TO DREAM

Beacon of hope and faith

I was born in 1999 as the third born of 4 girls, in a small village called Kanyawegi, in Kenya, where life was never easy. Growing up I faced many challenges, one being that I was raised by a single mum, as my father passed away just two months after my birth.

My mother could barely provide for our basic needs and we would go hungry for days. We had a very difficult relationship with our paternal extended family, and two of my sisters died to pneumonia because my mother could not afford to pay for their hospital bill.

Due to the family conflict mum faced at our father’s family home, she was forced to go back to her parents’ house where life was difficult as well, but at least she had peace of mind. She struggled to do casual jobs to provide for our family, but that was never enough.

I was enrolled in kindergarten and my school life began. We faced a real challenge paying school fees, but fortunately one of my uncles offered to pay.

In 2014, and enrolled in a secondary school, things became tougher than I could ever imagine. We struggled to survive every day and due to high levels of poverty, my mum and grandparents could not afford to pay for my school fees and I was always in and out of school.

I started tending to neighbours’ gardens to at least get some money for my personal needs since I was a teenager and on my period, and I needed extra money for school fees.

At the age of 16 my life reached a new low. With my part-time work not being enough and due to peer pressure, I opted to start sleeping with men for money. This brought the real nightmare into my life. When I fell pregnant I was devastated, struggling to put food on the table, struggling with school fees and now, I had a child growing inside me.

My world felt apart. I had to get back to tending peoples’ farms to be able to provide for myself and the incoming baby. I was very young and naive and I didn’t understand pregnancy.

After I gave birth it was a real struggle. I had to wait for a year for the baby to be strong enough to stay behind and I went to the city in search of a job. I got a job as a househelp and the pay was so little.

Jumping from the frying pan into the fire, I got pregnant again with my second child. I was very disappointed in myself and I hated myself a lot.

I went to the city to work so that I could return to school and now I had repeated the same mistake again. How could I do this to myself, and to my family?

I could not go home until I gave birth. My grandparents were so angry at me and so disappointed. I was all alone. When that baby was a year old, I left her again with my grandparents ,who were very old, to go look for job again to be able to fend for the family now.

During this time, my life changed. I met a friend whom I opened up to and he introduced me to an amazing woman who offered to sponsor me to go for my first training in permaculture.

I got my first Permaculture Design Course training and this changed my perspective on how I viewed life, I became resilient and a powerhouse. I saw that there is still hope in life, I could grow my food with what I have, which is purely organic and I could sell the surplus to sustain my family. I hopped into it and I started a small kitchen garden and we could finally eat from our garden.

I thought it wise to start raising hens using permaculture skills and the chicken project started scaling up and I started having good sales, and I decided to get back to school. This paid for my school fees until I did my final exams.

Based on my experience, I decided to start helping young mothers who have had teenage pregnancy and were forced to drop out of school and had no hope of ever getting back.

I started equipping them with the skills of how to raise poultry using permaculture knowledge. Through this initiative I was able to enrol 20 girls back into school.

Five are currently sitting for their forth form final exams and five sat for their primary education and are now heading to secondary school next year (January 2025), and 10 are still soldiering on with hopes of graduating into secondary school in 2026.

My dream is to expand this project to be able to reach to 50 more girls by January 2025, because they are many and I am only one person.

But things are changing again in my life. Back in July 2024, I met Jessica Perini and Josefine Jacobsson of Permaculture Partners based in Australia, who were touched by my work and we have since been working together, connecting women across Kenya.

Together with Hope for Refugee Life, we started with a needs analysis and interviews with women across two sites.

Together they have helped me realise a vision for Kanyawegi Wasichana Tunaweza (Kanyawegi Girls We Can) and we have joined with Kakuma Wanawake Tunawesa (Kakuma Girls We Can) and our medium term plan is to empower 300 young mothers, aged 12-18, who have dropped out of school in the Kanyawegi host community and Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya through education in permaculture poultry farming.

Together we have applied for grants, and aim to continue doing so, creating and developing a wider vision as we proceed.

I have become a beacon of hope and faith to these wonderful young mothers and I have planted that seed in them that everything is possible.

I realise now that we own our story and we can right the wrongs we have done in the past and thrive. With a positive mindset we can overcome our traumas.

We have so many girls whom we will support in the future when we expand and that means we need more chickens . And, I hope, with your help, that together we can make a difference.

While we wait for news of our grant success, can you please help me achieve my immediate goal of getting the girls currently in my program through school for 2025?

Please donate here, if you can. If you cannot afford to help at this time, please share my story, and help me find connections to achieve this dream for the girls’ education.

https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/99OqNG0vLF

Feel free to contact me at rakinyi712@gmail.com if you would like to network and help in other ways.