 This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. The significant change in society is the stem of all initiatives. Women are rising up in numbers to ensure they no longer sit at the back just to watch, but to also participate and take the stand. Judy Oricho is a woman leading others. Let's hear more. Judy, you look so nice. So tell us what do you do and who are you? I'm Judy Oricho. I'm born and raised in Tika, but currently residing in Boussia County. I'm a human resource manager by profession, but currently I'm a human rights advocate and basically a major on advocating for gender equality for women. So is this what you trained for? Is it a field that you've involved yourself in through experience or skill? It started as an experience, but then I went ahead and trained as a human rights advocate. So what experience was that? In the community that I live in, I found that most women didn't even know their rights. They didn't even know the rights of, I mean, the human rights, the rights to education, the right to basically the party human rights. They didn't even know them. And that one pushed me to wanting to educate them on their rights so that their rights are not derived from them. Yes. And so how do you push to advocate for their rights? Do you have an organization you're working with? Yes. I work with an international organization, USID HR, which is based in the US, Washington DC. That is where I trained my human rights training. And locally I also run my own organization called Awinolav Organization, where I educate women and girls on their rights and try to make them make informed decisions as women. Yes. So why the name Awinolav? Is it something derived from someone, a name maybe? Awinolav is very simple. It's basically advancing women's initiative and giving them opportunities. So it's an acronym. Yes. So what inspired you to start Awinolav, aside from working with the US? I think what inspired me is derived from my story. I got, I'm a victim of teenage pregnancy. I got pregnant at the age of 12 years. And I mean 13 years. And I went through a lot of challenges, including dropping out of school. But then after dropping out of school because of the teenage issues, I schooled in a Catholic school. As you know, Catholic schools are very strict. So at some point I had to drop out of school. Actually I was expelled from school. And I didn't have, my mom had died by that time. So I was only having my dad. And my dad, I really had broke my dad. I disappointed him because he was looking up to me so much. He got so much and things changed to the worse. But then because that's when I knew that somebody can believe in someone. You can be seated somewhere and you don't know without knowing there's somebody who really believes in you and is looking up to you. After I got my baby, I gave birth to my son. Somebody took me back to school. Wow. And that one alone, it's a long story. So that one alone gives me the drive to want to create an equitable and accessible society to our future generation. Yes. So in Awinola, what activities are you involved in? In Awinola, we have several activities. One, we have education, where we identify poverty-risked girls and take them back to school. We also do mentorship in schools. We also advocate and train on human rights, as I've said before. And we also advocate on issues of gender-based violence, where we talk to women on issues related to gender-based violence and also support them socially, economically so that they can be sustainable in their lives. Yes. So what age gap do you major in? Is it the young girls or is it the middle-aged youths or maybe an age? What age bracket do you major in? In our organization, we identify, it doesn't matter. We don't have an age gap because you can find a girl who is nine years, but she's poor. She can't go to school. In that case, we take that girl and take her to school and provide her with necessities that she needs to go to school. On the other hand, you can find a woman who is a grown woman, but she's going through gender violence issues. We'll take her in, advise her, and with networking with other organizations, we always find possible solutions to tackle those issues. Yes. And what are the key issues that you have come across since starting Awino Love that you must highlight about these young girls you're talking about? As you know, Kenya is ranked third in issues of teenage pregnancies. It's actually, it's a national issue. So those are some of the issues that we are really tackling as Awino Foundation. We really campaign against teen issues of teenage pregnancies and early marriages because these are issues that are there. You know that, I know that, and even the public know that. So as Awino Love Foundation, those are some of the things that we've really identified and we've done campaigns from almost 23 counties. Wow. And I've reached 24 girls in talks on issues of teenage pregnancies with the campaign, teenage pregnancies, early marriages, and even female genital mutilations. So those are some of the things that as Awino Love Foundation, we really focus on campaigning against. Yeah, you've talked about female genital mutilation and this is something core in tradition. So how do you help the young girls get that out of them that this is not a tradition? It's actually my right not to get mutilated? I will say again, training them on their rights as humans. You know, it's against human rights acts to be mutilated. So actually we currently have a program in Mass, like Kipia. We work with an organization called NAVILA Conservation Group. We have a group of 72 girls who we talk to after every two months. We talk to them and also we supply them with menstrual hygiene management products. So in that process, we have a session with them. In Awino Foundation, we have what we call a program called Semanada. Semanada means talking to girls. So in this session, we have a session with them, talk to them, train them on their rights so that when they are being subjected to go through FGM, they can speak on themselves and say, this is against my rights. So those are some of the things and some of the problems that we do with those girls. Wow. And considering you also deal with education, education is a key factor in our child. Let me say that. So what about the two-thirds gender role in Kenya? It's a discussion that is over and over and overtaken, but it's not really coming up. So how do you help with that? How do you ensure that the two-thirds gender role in Kenya is taken seriously? With two-thirds gender role, one first thing is to encourage young women to go for the elective positions, because we cannot attain two-third gender role if we are seated. We don't go for those elective positions. Two, we really need to talk to women, to come out and vote for women, because without votes, how will we get into those positions? And three, we have issue of culture. We really need to decompain the cultural and traditions that women cannot lead. Those are some of the things that we really need to come out very strongly and talk about. And the list is long. Another thing we need to push for the implementation of two-third gender role as it is stipulated in our Kenyan constitution. And what about someone? There are ladies out here who, yes, there are messages of motivation, yes, there are women empowerment groups all over, but they're still in themselves saying that, no, I cannot do this, no, I am supposed to be second to a man, I'm supposed to be led, not to lead. How do you reach out to such ladies? As I said, we had a platform, I mean, a program in an organization called Semana Dada, and these are kind of the talks that we get involved with, because in today's world, you have to be present. You have to take up every space. Nobody will give you a space. You have to identify a gap and run with it. If you want to be, let's say, for example, you want to be a politician, you want to be a women rep or an MCA, remember, nobody will come and tell you, hey, Judy, we are giving you this seat. You have to go, do your research very well, present your agenda, give us your manifesto, and go for it. You know, most women, they're like, we are not given spaces. But then what have you done? Yeah, what have you done? Have you come out and told us, if I'm elected, I'd change ABCD. And then I think by coming out and being sure of what you want, then it will be very easy for women to at least conquer these men-dominated fields. Yeah. And speaking of your agenda and information, how do you mobilize it? Is it through social media or physical door-to-door things? How do you do it? I use social media. I use door-to-door. I use other organizations and also have volunteers in my organization who helps in terms of mobilization. And I also have a network with other organizations in different counties or rather in different sub-counties. So they help in terms of mobilization. Yeah. So if I wanted to reach out to Awinola, where can I go in? FB, what are they handled? We have Facebook at Awinola Foundation. We have Twitter, and we also have Instagram. And also we have an email and a website that you can always reach us. Nice. And what are the specific things that you can say, these are the activities aside from Semadada that we do? Do you have skills that you train these young girls to do? Do you have education structures that you put some girls who do not go to school in? Currently, we don't have any sort of social entrepreneurial world. Well, we only have a school-based program that is taking girls to school. And we do referrals in what we don't do. We do referrals to other organizations that are offering social entrepreneurial skills. And yeah, that is what we do. And you also mentioned about the GBV, the gender-based violence. And it has been rampant since the onset of COVID-19. It's now coming to maybe people are noticing this is a problem. Do you also notice that? And what do you do to help mitigate that? Actually, GBV is also a major concern in this country. And those are some of the things that we do as an organization. One, we talk to women on issues GBV. And we really try to make them understand that, you know, it's not a do or die thing. If things cannot work, they cannot work. And the mitigation that, as the Wino Foundation has done, one first and foremost, we've come up with a safe house where abused women and girls can find shelter. Then we can give them hope and then we take them through therapy. And we make sure that they get justice. A safe house is very important because so many cases we've had issues of gender-based violence. But then the question was, where do we take these people? I had a case of a girl in campus who was being abused by the parent, the dad. But I feel so bad that this girl had to go back because I didn't have anywhere to take her. And her biggest question was, what next? And who is going to take care of my education? Honestly, I cannot take all the GBV cases in my house. You know, you cannot do that either. So I try to come up with a solution of identifying a safe space where we can have these victims. As we pursue for justice, a place we can keep them and take them through psychosocial support, hope so that they don't go back to the perpetrator's house. Imagine a case of a defiled 13-year-old theater. Currently we are having a case of a 10-year-old who has died because of defilement case. This kid was taken back to the house where the perpetrator was. And she died of complications. Who knows what happened? So that's why I decided to come up with a safe space for the victims of gender-based and sexual gender abuse, girls and women. A place they can be safe as we pursue for their justice. That is so encouraging. And considering that these are cases that lead to even mental health disorders, do you have doctors or psychologists who you work with to help these victims or survivors? Yes, we have counselors and we have psychologists who, of course, we are partnering with organizations that are offering those services so that they can help the victims to go through those phases. Speaking of partners, what other partners do you have in your organization? We have, in Boussia County, we have Akokas of Boussia County CSOs network. We have an organization called Fight Depression and Stress Feeds. They really help our victims in terms of counseling and psychosocial supports. We have an organization called RIP. RIP has been very vocal on issues of gender-based violence. She's of a very good support to most of Boussia organizations on issues GBV and other organizations who we are sharing the common goal. So in this journey, have you experienced any challenges and if you have, what are the challenges? Of course, challenges are many. One, as you had mentioned COVID-19. When COVID-19 came, the issues of gender-based violence, they really, you know, they were up there. They were up, up, up, and you could receive case after case after case. You know, that was one challenge. But then we couldn't do much because everything was on a lockdown. You know, two, of course, resources. Sometimes we don't have enough resources to help in these cases. And those are some of the biggest challenges that I can say we face. And another one, sometimes we've done a lot of campaigns against teenage pregnancies. But then when you watch news, you find numbers going up instead of going down. And then you ask yourself, what are we not doing right? So you have to go back to the drawing board. So those are kind of the challenges that I have faced as a person and as an organization. But then we really try not to give up, but come up with other better ways of bettering our service delivery. And how would you say the community has taken up your initiative as Awino loves? Oh, I'm happy that the community has really embraced Awino loves because they're seeing we have, of course, besides challenges, we have some good news because we have girls who have at least, you know, they got pregnant. But then when they see me, because I use my story, when they see me, they see hope. I can also do it. You know, if Judy got pregnant at this age, but then now look at her, look at where she is. And the community has also shown me that they are really embracing what I do because when I called for fundraising to set up a safe house, they came in and they really donated towards the safe house. This one shows you that they feel the need of having this particular project running. So the community has really embraced it and I'm very grateful. And as the fundraisers helped, how else can the society support your gender? The society, one thing I really encourage the society to support any form of gender violence because we can only fight this thing if they report. Two, we still don't have any funding for the safe house. And you know, it needs a lot of money because we need food, we need to employ people, the psychologists, the security. So I'm really still asking the society and people who are watching this and people who have gone through the same to come. We accept any supporting kind, be it food, be it clothes, be it utensils, anything that can make the safe space running. We'll be really grateful. And where do you see Awin and Laf in the future? Maybe five, 10 years? Honestly, I'm seeing a grown organization from local to an international space. And do you also like, do you have volunteers coming in to work with you or it's just anything? Yeah, I have volunteers that we work with, and actually I receive, every day I receive emails, text messages for people who want to work. But because the organization is not that grown, we can only accommodate a particular number of volunteers. Yeah, so we have a group of volunteers who we work with. Yes. And seeing that you're an amazing young person, starting your own thing. What can you say to a young person out there who's striving to reach towards what you have reached, but there's a challenge. What can you tell such a person? I want to tell young people that there's a space for everyone, but only if you go for it. We want to decompine this notion that youths always akuna kazi, akuna kazi. I will use this one, one funny statement that a friend of mine always tells me that you did the, you know, your story gave you a career. Yeah, so I will encourage young youths outside there, that if you identify a space, there's so many spaces, you know, we have these people complaining about boy child have been neglected, boy child have been neglected. What are you doing as a young person to also advocate for a boy child? So I will encourage youths that if you identify a space, run with it and make it something that can stand out when you are called to speak about it. Yeah, that is so lovely. I have loved your story that you took such a big challenge. Most of the young ladies who are teenage mothers tend to give up because the family, the friends around them, they've neglected them, but you took it and ran with it. Now you have a winner love. Congratulations for that. And may your initiative take off. Thank you. If you identify a space, run with it. Because the sky is not only the limit. All you have to do is take the initiative and go with it. This has been Youth in Action. I am Nyangueso Grenis.