 What's up guys? Welcome to SPM Buzz. My name is Miss Kithingi. In case you have not subscribed, please make sure you do because you know we are heading to 100K subscribers and if you click that subscribe button, you're getting us to 100K subscribers. Speaking to a global icon, this lady has been able to achieve so much. She's a beauty queen. She's a mentor. She's a TED Talks speaker. She's even a global citizen award winner. And just the other day, she added another award to her many accolades. And this is the Global Nursing Award. This is a beautiful Anna Kavale Duba. Yeah? How are you my dear? I'm fine. How are you? Very good. I'm really tired. Now we're gonna just get into it and let me I want to know how are you feeling right now and what does this award mean to you? The first-ever award that I won because of my profession and not just winning award, it is a global award. Global Nursing Award. And for sure it's a great thing. It's a good gesture that Astagardian has recognized the voice of nurses and I'm happy to be the first-ever edition's winner. Yeah. You know that's really good. Guys in case you don't know, Kavale has beat over 24,000 nominees of this particular award and I mean that's really good. Now let's talk about your childhood because I know at 12 years old you went through FGM. You were able to escape marriage but I'm just here wondering at 14 years how are you able to do this? Where is the confident at 14 years old? That's yes. It's true. You know I come from Northern Kenya where harmful cultural practices such as FGM and early marriages still exist and people believe that since it's culture someone should not talk about it. I underwent FGM at 12 years old. I was not forced for the FGM because it's a culture that we even ask for it anyway. But for my marriage I was engaged without my knowledge and I was to be married off but my late brother yesterday if you could have seen I dedicated this award to my late brother. He's the one who saved me and decided that I should finish my primary education, go to secondary and then university. So I didn't fight for myself that time but yes in one way or the other I fought because I work really hard for me to be the top of my class throughout my primary level so that I can be able to go to the secondary school. And then after now becoming an us and graduating with a degree I decided to champion against this and for cultural practices and bridge the gap through education programs in the Northern Kenya. Yeah and indeed you beat all odds for sure to be here today. Now you know I checked where you work at the Maristabit Hospital and I could see that you are reporting for the COVID-19 you know situation and the patients that are coming in during the pandemic and not to mention that you were actually expecting a child during that time. How was it? Yeah it was tough. I am finalizing my master's in field epidemiology that's why I've been attached to emergency operation center for Maristabit County and actually EOC came into place during the COVID-19. It was tough for us actually I was a high risk being pregnant being diabetic all that but but we managed and I'm happy that today the world has recognized the work that I do. Yeah. Oh wow now Kabale I would also like to know you know during your speech you mentioned your husband and you said my husband you're simply the best. Where is he the best? Yeah from where I come from women like me are seen to be not wife material because they think that the place for a woman is just in the kitchen. Yeah I don't talk much about it but yeah my husband is simply the best. I was engaged before him for like almost six years but my engagement was broken when I became Miss Tourism because the person thought that we are not of the same class and I am not a wife material but on another hand my husband loved me on that day because I became famous and now we are we are becoming global citizen with him. When I won the global citizen award I was with him in New York, New York 2019 when I received the award. Same for today he's simply the best because he's supporting me yeah we have a young family I have two babies one and a half and the one and a half year old whenever I travel for my work he takes his time to take care of our babies as well. Yeah that's really beautiful I mean you're so blessed honestly now you know Kabale you've been a mom especially to a girl and you're a champion of you know women rights and girl rights you know what is that one challenge you went through as a child that right now you never want your daughter to go through? I think when I was a child I didn't know I'm undergoing any challenge because you know as a child the environment is the same for everyone but growing up I discovered that we face a lot of challenges as kids when we came to primary school especially lack of sanitary pads you know sometimes we lack these basic necessities and girls end up missing classes or even dropping out of school that's why I decided to be to break even the silence about menstrual hygiene and one of one of my programs and the Kabale Duba Foundation is called PAPA project PAPA means pads and panties the girls in that side of the world some do not even have panties so how can you give someone a pad and they have no panties so we decided that program those are the kind of the challenges that we faced as as kids and yeah pastoral skills are facing the same challenges still yeah even access to education is a major problem access to quality health is a major problem yeah and you know those are some of the things we don't know when we're here in Nairobi we don't know people are going through the such things thank you for you know just recognizing those things now Kabale you see you're a champion for women rights but I want to want to know what is then gender equality mean to you agenda equality means to me where men and women are given equal opportunities even at workplace as in like it's a right for every child to get an education but when it comes to the pastoralist communities when that decision is to be made definitely the boy child should be given upper hand so I want boys and girls to be given equal opportunities in everything yeah you run a very unique school. Ebu tell us about that because most people I'm sure they don't know about it yeah my school I think came to limelight when Nimrod Tabu traveled all the way to my village to cover and do a documentary about my school yeah anyway after I was a Miss Tourism Marsabit County 2013 and also Miss Peace Kenya and Investment 2013-2014 after winning the titles of that Miss Tourism I never went abroad or go on modeling I decided to go back home and empower the women and girls so generally whatever I was doing is just around education I'm doing mentorship which is in education we are doing career talks in education championing I'm going to stay home for cultural practices to keep girls in school so I thought of it that I need to come up with something sustainable something that that progress from one to another that's how I decided to come up with a school the school name is Turbi Pioneer I call it Pioneer because I'm the first graduate girl from my village so the school is a unique one because the children come to school in the morning the parents especially the mothers come to the same school for adult learning center I decided to use this model because with the CBC system in Kenya parents are expected to help their kids with their homework but now the illiterate mother how do you expect her to explain to the baby so it's very funny we are giving assignments that assignment that's given to a pp1 child is given to the mother so when they go home it's that pp1 or pp2 or pp3 I mean grade one child that is helping the mother how to hold a pen and write her name so this makes these women value education and they take more of their kids to school yeah beautiful beautiful now as we wind up Kabale someone who's been you know who's been in in a very challenging growing up sort of lifestyle please talk to them inspire them and just let them know they can I would like to say that uh as Lupita Nyong'o said no matter where we come from our dreams are valid and uh as for me I'm a dreamer I dream they are nice to be someone in this world and I have no limit I try my level best even applying to these awards I I am on social media so much and I'm on social media looking for opportunities and sharing what I do with the world so that whenever I am nominated for something and voting comes up I'm there on Facebook please people vote for me and I can get like 600 1000 likes you know because people have seen what I'm doing I'm not saying people social media but generally do passionately whatever you decide to do yeah yeah what is going to change now after this beautiful award what is going to change these are huge award it's huge it's really huge for me not only for me even for the entire county and for the entire people that I am working for since I'm already running a project of the school I'm planning to expand the school and have a boarding section so that we can be able to accommodate more deserving pastoralist children into the school all right yeah thank you for having me my name is George George Yosewe I represent an organization by the name Herra spelt out health education research and foundation for Africa it's basically in charge of strategic and policy strategic policies for health care and especially health care for humanity and that is our food that is our game and that is our thought now in respect to our beautiful lady here and sometimes you know they say when you're beauty you don't have brains thank god she has everything and this is makes it easier for us but more importantly you know from marsupit county a county that's known for conflicts and all this and then they produce somebody amazing like her winning the astra guardian in dubai well we know there were 24 000 nominees and honestly I think she's born a winner now I just came to know of a history in terms of winning and winning and winning until this point in time well we'll make a win more but most of the humanitarian needs most of them actually and I just spoke to a lady from marsupit as well she's won a lot of awards actually I'd like to just write it down her name is Dahaba Red Cross award 2015 Yali USA 2016 as a matter of fact she traveled and met Obama herself we have Ambrif health Africa on 2018 beyond zero 2021 international women day 2020-21 nurse midwife 2021 and she just told us an interesting story that she won an award in 2012 and she couldn't reach Belgium because she didn't have proper network but now her award is actually being shipped on now but they managed to celebrate her so this is the bridge this is what we need to bridge in respect to our nurses our healthcare workers and I love what Anna said in respect to nursing you say it's just not a nurse it's a nurse that caption alone speaks a lot yes so what message do you have for cabale cabale keep flying we always say that uh uh sky is a limit but i put the moon is a limit aim for the moon fall on the sky but more importantly we say success is not a finality and failure is not federal it's the urge to continue that counts please continue all right all right cabale any more to add to this i'm just humbled it's good when someone out there recognizes your work um yeah i'm happy about the hubbo we were together for the yearly 2016 we met obama the unique story that i didn't tell you is that when we went for mandela washington fellowship in america i was placed at syracuse university the first trip to new york i was shocked being just directly from village and that was my first time to be out of this country really so i went back to university and decided to text obama but i didn't know how so i i went to white house website and in every website there is something leave a message i left a message just saying that thank you president obama apparently he read and he wrote me a letter from white house posted to me directly to kenya yeah so that's really beautiful okay okay you have anything to add well what i'll say as a matter of fact that uh cabale and i told a much more early in the speech don't be snatched we need people like in kenya to improve our healthcare maternal care uh give a value addition to the profession itself and i just talked to a few nurses who you know we have an infant mortality uh very high uh and people like you we can use and actually serve your country now whoever wants you let them come here and establish something for you not get our brains in terms of brain drain and get you out there so i know you're patriotic enough and this is what we're going to use to inspire also our little girls and anywhere from any county and especially from marsupit that speaks volumes so congratulations i'm very proud of you and honestly you know you're like a daughter to me my daughter is 2021 so i see you in that and that's why my passion and this organization we have for strategic policies so that we can help our mothers our children our sisters even our fathers again thank you thank you so much for getting a minute i know you're very tired man i can see that i can see that i wish we could stay longer because you know cabale has an very inspiring story that we could learn a lot from i wish we could stay longer but we can't because we need to let her go and rest but thank you thank you so much all right guys that was okay and and you know was right here on spm bars bars with stars thank you so much for watching my name is miss kithingy until next time it's goodbye