ALLUTA CONTINUA!!!NOTHING WILL BREAK ME DOWN

Coming from a family of 7siblings, circumstances forced my mother to become our soul bread winner. My father who was a salesman with one of the leading pharmaceutical companies resigned from his work, after rivalry between him and a co worker got nasty and he almost lost his life. My mother labored so hard day and night to feed, clothe and educate us all. My dad died in July 2009 due to liver cancer.

A month after his death his only surviving brother and kinsmen decided to sell all of our land in the village without caring that his late brother had a family! When my mother and elder brother went to inquire, she was told that she could as well go back to her father’s home as that was not her home and the only link they had with us was now gone, worse still they used black magic to inflict madness on my elder brother, and a severe skin infection on my second brother that saw us treating huge rotten wounds again using traditional medicine since the hospitals could not help. What more could be painful to a widow? These incidences are common within my community and women plus children suffer a lot, some end up becoming landless, prostitutes, street urchins, drug addicts and peddlers and even armed robbers.

I thank God I graduated last year in November 2010 with an undergraduate degree in mass communication, I managed to secure a sales and marketing job in January this year with a milling company in Kisumu had to do something to help my mother by relieving her of some bills in the house and paying for my younger siblings their fees. This dream was cut short when my immediate boss fired me 6months later because I could not give in to his sexual advances.

So I decided to volunteer (with no pay since its a new organization)as the Communication person for the LBTI Community based organization WOMEN WORKING WITH WOMEN (3W).And that is when I ventured into the world of advocating for women rights both in domestic and work fronts because I have gone through it all and can relate with others who have gone through the same. World Pulse gave me a platform. I will use the social media for positive change and I want to learn how to harness this tool to my advantage to bring change in my community. I want to help women who have lost their husbands and have been rejected by their kinsmen, since many have shared their stories with me.