Women’s Participation in Constitution-Making Process in Kenya (S.3, Part 13)

Abstract

This 1hour 23minutes 44seconds–long video was recorded in June 2017. Mwamburi was born in Voi, Taita Taveta Division and married in Busia and settled in Nakuru. After completing her secondary and A-levels she joined Kenya Polytechnic where she pursued a diploma in Business Administration. Mwamburi married when she was in her second year in Kenya Polytechnic pursuing a diploma in Upon getting her first son she moved to live with her husband in Nakuru. Later, she returned to college and completed her diploma. She worked as a housewife but later she felt that she needed to utilize her skills and started working as a saleslady and later shifted into tailoring and embroidery. From her first sales, she bought a coffee table which she values to date. She later joined ALICO as an insurance saleslady. Her husband did not like the job and when they bumped into an advertisement for a Diocesan Project Officer, her husband asked her to respond to it. She applied and became the first Nakuru Diocesan Project Officer. She worked on contract from 1995 to 2003 when she had a serious accident. She could not work effectively and upon the expiry of her contract, she lost the job. After her recovery in 2004, she started doing community work in Barut, Nakuru. After losing her job, she joined with others who had lost their jobs through the Structural Adjustment Programme. They formed a group “Familia”. At Barut she encountered very young girls with babies who had married very young very intelligent without ever going to school. This reminded her of her childhood and her love for schooling. This motivated her to start working with women and girls. Her encounter with very young girls with babies triggered her interest to reach out and start working with girls. She started working with them with the ACK Church. She also sought support from the CDF for their school fees. Alcoholism was also a problem as parents were involved in sand harvesting and children were left to take care of the siblings. She started working with the Chiefs to address this social problem. She realized there were many other social problems including GBV and land issues. This was exacerbated during the post-election violence in 2007. Mwamburi was a pathfinder in conflict resolution during the 2007 post-election violence. She tried to assist as well as give information to people who she thought were the right people to address the conflict. She notes that as a women leader she suffered a lot in her struggle to help the community resolve the ethnic conflicts, particularly during the 2007 post-election violence. Her peace-building initiatives backfired on her and were beaten up by her husband, who did not approve of her peace-building activities. Following the beatings, she was taken by her brother to Nairobi where she was also treated at the Nairobi Hospital. When she returned home she slowed down her engagement with the community because her husband refused her to go out though in her heart she had a lot of pain. The PEV left entire communities traumatized. After the PEV she was able to resume working with the community in an effort to restore peace. In 2010 she was involved in training in forgiveness and reconciliation by Family Health International. She trained women and girls’, TOTs, on community reach out in an effort to promote peaceful co-existing among the different ethnic groups. Mwamburi’s experience of the impact of violence on the lives of women and communities at large has seen her trend for peacebuilding in the Nakuru area. Her work in conflict and peacebuilding won her the position of PeaceNet Coordinator in the Rift Valley and she has become actively involved in peacebuilding in the region. She’s passionately committed to peace buildings and remains a pillar in the promotion of post-conflict reconciliation and peacebuilding in collaboration with other peacebuilding actors including the CJPC, County Peace Committees, among others in the Rift Valley. She notes that peacebuilding is a challenging and risky exercise both physically and psychologically. According to Mwamburi, elections are a major source of conflict and there should be some interventions to help those whose dreams have been shattered through elections, deal with their emotions, in an effort to build sustainable peace. She is also actively involved in promoting girls’ education and women’s empowerment. She feels there are too many injustices, particularly for women and boys and girls who are still traumatized by the experiences during the PEV, but duty bearers are not doing enough.