Dig Deep Where You Are!

‘’Hard work and excellence are essential for every success story, always strife for the top and you would make it, your race and your gender can only be limiting factors if you are mediocre’’,I over heard Mary Ngwena telling a group of girls as I approached her house.''Mary,full of inspiring words,always teaching '' ,I said to myself as I proceeded.With no popularity or a very significant leadership position, she is a perfect example of what I describe as a silent heroine.A woman who has affected the lives hundreds of grass root women and children in her community.
An educationist and president of the Christian Womens Fellowship group of the Presbyterian Church in her locality,Mary is determined not to let any woman remain with the belief she is meant for the backyard. ''I follow up my female pupils and sometimes meet their parents right in their homes to make sure the girls get secondary education. I never had the opportunity to go to secondary school and university, but I fought my way through and got my education through correspondence while bearing my children. I made this certificate between the labor room and the examination hall’’,she explains, brandishing a London College of Preceptors certificate. ''The exams were written on the same day I had my last baby, she was born at 4am and I sat for the exams at 9am’’.Putting down the piece of paper she continues her kitchen work while answering my questions. Her leadership in the womens group has transformed the lives of many women who thought they were too old to succeed . I encourage women to be industrious and do their best in whatever they lay their hands on, be it in their farms ,at home or in the market.
Heading a church group of over six hundred women from all walks of life, her goal apart from spiritual,has been to empower the jobless by encouraging them to indulge in any income generating activities of their choice and to encourage those who are intelligent and enthusiastic about studies to further their education. More than thirty of these women have been transformed from full time housewives to teachers, nurses and secretaries and journalists while a good number are running lucrative businesses. Besides her teaching job, she does sewing, knitting, hairdressing and large scale farming. ‘’An ideal Christian woman is like the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 in the bible. One who makes her husband and community proud by being industrious, if he prevents you from working out of home dig deep where you are and bring out the precious stones, he will marvel at your capabilities’’ Mary declares with a tone of certainty. In her opinion it is only when women would prove their worth to men that they shall be emancipated.Nagging, crying, and complaining without attempting solutions to challenges will instead aggravate the problem of gender inequality, but working hard to swell bank accounts and increase knowledge is an automatic solution. She is currently drafting a proposal to forward to the ministry of basic education, introducing Gender Studies at the primary school level, to propagate the idea that men and women are born equal.’’ This would help curb any form of chauvinism in children at their tender ages and enable the girls see themselves as normal human beings with the capacities of delving into any field in life’’.Mary says she is not comfortable with text books that assign particular professions to men only and others to women only. ‘’That explains why we have just one female pilot in Cameroon’’ she laments. Three of the female orphans she is sponsoring including her last daughter, are studying physics at university level. She says her dream is to see one of them get into piloting.
At 55, Mary Ngwena has brought up 13 orphans under her roof alongside six biological children and three grand children. She is always ready to teach her skills to any woman or young girl who cares to learn. This Tuesday evening, I met her teaching a group of teenage girls how to bake banana cakes, at the same time giving them pieces of advice. She prefers impacting society from her home and church than creating an organization, she says she feels more motherly to orphans when they are raised under her roof than putting them in an orphanage. She prefers taking a few at a time and giving them quality home training. She expresses gratitude to her husband who has always played the role of a good father to the orphans and given her the chance to evolve from a primary school graduate to what she is today. Mary says a good and stable home is the best gift parents can offer their children, so part of her advice to the women she meets constantly is for them to do their utmost best in making their homes peaceful and stable. ‘’A woman`s first assignment is to take proper care of her husband and children, any other thing is secondary’ Mary states with her index finger raised .
She calls on women to push their way through and not wait for a time when society would change, they should rather change society. Her dream is for all the women and children whose lives she has impacted , to equally change the lives of others. Despite a difficult childhood with no parental warmth and sufficient education, Mary Ngwena through determination and hard work metamophosized from a problem to a problem solver. ‘‘We were all created to be a solution to a problem, so brighten the corner where you are by solving any problem you can solve’’.With this statement she tapped my back as she concluded my ten minutes chat with her and moved towards her oven to check on the cakes she was baking for her cookery lessons.