Nurturing as Resistance

My human rights journey started off as a result of an incidence that felt me rethinking about myself and my purpose. I had studied to become a marketer, sadly this was never to be as my first job  was hawking knives in the Central Business District (CBD) on Nairobi-Kenya’s capital city. Each of the sales persons was given a box , in the box there were 14 knives of different shapes and sizes, thin, broad based, serrated name it .It was my first encounter with diversity in knives. And to make matters worse , it was a commission job meaning that if you did not sell , at the end of the day you took home nothing .We could approach people and in the best marketing voice say today we have a promotion , we are selling these knives at this much , in shops it goes for this much ( often quoting a higher price) in order to convince the customer to buy.By the end of the day, my legs were swollen.That is the day I discovered that Nairobi city is quite expansive, especially if you are doing sales.

One would be customer told me , "I have one knife at home and I’m often vigilant about my security , what of buying these 14 knives , these are weapons of mass destruction”. I can laugh about it now when I reminisce , but this statement was a  defining  moment for me. I decided that I was not born to do marketing , but something else, and that is how I shifted to community work when I got an opportunity to volunteer at an organisation promoting the rights of Persons Living with HIV .From there it was learning and a process of self-discovery and I have gotten to meet really amazing people who believed in me , gave me opportunities , nurtured me and still remain my mentors and friends to date.

As part of my giving back , I embarked on a journey of nurturing others and in the process ,  create an enabling environment for others to thrive , to self-discover .I do this through organising training , speak out events and  practical advocacy work. Whenever it is a human rights related day, my head is always  thinking about what can we do creatively to commemorate this day, whom do we bring on board in this conversation, whom do we work with ?.The  never giving up spirit I have has seen me nurture many university students and out of school youth ,rural women and farming communities.  Some of the  have gone ahead and gotten job opportunities, some we have had  practical sessions on how to respond to interviews , how to run projects  , many refer to me as their mentor( wow feeling)  and often call upon me with questions , I get special invitations  to appear during  students graduations and I don't take these moments for granted.It means a lot , it means touching lives positively.

Through nurturing others , I’m contributing to co-creation of knowledge, to new learning and unlearning among the people with whom our paths cross. By nurturing and listening to others , I'm amplifying grassroots experiences , the muted voices .Holding debates for example on food, climate change, gender , child rights , women rights , access to justice , is my way of saying no to the existing situation, it my way of making people start asking questions, is my way of pushing people to adapt new ways of doing things , is my way of sharing the African perspective with people in the diaspora,is my way of saying stop being a bystander and do something, is my way of connecting with others and building solidarity despite our geographic boundaries .

                                                                Nurturing is my resistance , what's yours?