 Welcome back, this is Y in the morning and today is WCW. We are asking you the question, how do you tell someone you love, maybe someone you're dating about a behavior that you don't like without hurting their feelings? In Utama MediTabia and you opinion about them without hurting their feelings, talk to us. The hashtag is WCW at Y254 channel across all social platforms. For now, we are joined by our first guest, a woman, you know, strength of woman and we are talking about girl child empowerment. We usually say that when you educate one child, one girl child in the community, you have educated the whole community and you want to find out how true this is and for that we are joined by Susan O'Siche, who is the CEO and founder of Inua Kike, an organization that seeks to empower young girls through education. Karim, what's your name Susan? Asante. We are glad to have you with us. Thank you so much. So as we start, tell us really what Inua Kike is because we know it's a great organization which is out there to help women with education. First of all, let me say thank you Y254 for having me here today. I've never been here, but this is my first time and I'm really grateful for the opportunity. I'm Susan O'Siche, the CEO of Inua Kike organization. Inua Kike is a grassroots organization. We are based in Madare. Our area of focus is around women empowerment through education, advocacy and leadership program. Okay. Yes. Under education program, we take girls who dropped out of secondary school. We give them the second chance to, we prepare them, we tutor them and then do registration for them to sit for the KCSE examination as the private candidates to attend their certificates. These are girls who dropped out due to early pregnancy, early marriage or lack of school fee. Actually, the education part is what birthed Inua Kike. We call it Inua Kike program. Inua Kike has three programs, which is Inua Kike, we have the advocacy and the leadership. The education is there to give the ladies a second chance to education. Those that dropped out for one reason or another, the reasons that you have listed. So Inua Kike was founded in 2016 and our first cohort of five girls, actually we had like 13 of them who applied to come for the Somesha Kike program. But due to the limited funds we had at that moment, we could not take in all of them. So we only had five who went through the program and successfully sat for their KCSE examination. We also had the second cohort in 2019. These were young ladies, nine of them who also went through the program and sat for the KCSE examination. And now we have eight of them who are sitting and probably most of them will be done by Fry B. So okay, that's so nice. All right. Congratulations. What you're doing is really empowering. So why the gap between the years? Because you started in 2016 and then the next one you did in 2019. So is it the funds that re-railed you? Actually with the program, we have the plan of having them for two years, maybe one and a half and then they sit for the KCSE examination. But later on we realized that you see these young girls who go for their hustle during the day and then in the evening they come sit for classes. So we only have them from 4 p.m. to 6, 6.30 p.m. in the evening. So during the day they go hustle because they have to fend for their kids because they are young mothers. Most of them dropped out due to early pregnancy and so we have to give them a chance to go hustle during the day and then in the evening they come for their classes. And actually we love their motivation because it's not easy for you to go hustle, come back, come to study in class and then going back home you have your kid there and sometimes most of them could carry their kids to class because they have no one to leave their kids with. Yeah, I'm imagining how much a struggle it is especially now you know with the economy you have to go look for food, you know women wear so many hats, you're still going to look for food, you're the one that the children are looking up to in terms of what needs to be done here, you also have your husband to look after you know and then you still have classes to come to and I'm imagining there's also some assignments, sometimes exams, you know, so how do they balance, how do they strike a balance? It's not an easy job, I'll talk about it because actually that is where my story comes in. Yes. So let me continue introducing what we do, the other two programs and then I come to my story. Okay, we'll go into it. Under advocacy program these are school retainers programs that we thought about because we do not wait for a girl child to drop out of secondary school so that we can come in to help. So we also had to come up with programs to keep a girl child in school. So these are mentorship programs that we go to schools and do the mentorship programs on our life skills, we just talk, we give a talk on what it's happening with their lives on their daily basis and then we also have reproductive health where we give dignity parks to the girl child and we talk about matters reproductive health. We also have Valisha Kike program, these are school distribution uniforms that we do. We are going to do the first pilot project in May, actually we are waiting for schools to reopen and then we go do our first pilot and with these we're still looking for partnerships for people who can come through because having this program we are trying to fight absenteeism in school and then also we are fighting self-esteem. You see we have teachers who have this tendency of working in class, they ask a question and you have to answer and when you answer you have to wake up and answer the question. So sometimes you see a girl child as worn a torn uniform, maybe you don't know what it is. So standing up and fighting self-esteem is what we are fighting. And we try to keep this girl child in school by trying to distribute school uniforms. We also do couple talks, these we involve their parents. They are still under advocacy? Yes, we fight GBV actually with this because a girl child needs a very conducive environment for her when she goes to school to have to perform well actually in school. So you might find and this one I'll give an example with my parents. Before you give the example is this the couple talk, is it for the parents of the students? Yes, so we try to talk to the parents. So that they can give a conducive, a good environment, a peaceful environment for the girl child because I'll give an example with my younger sister. Sometimes back when she was sitting for the KCC examination, my parents used to fight a lot. So by the time she wakes up in the morning, when she tries to concentrate to do her examination she can't. And she's one person we had so much, so much hope. Yes, we thought she would give us some good grades but because of whatever happened she couldn't perform well but she really tried because the environment we lived in wasn't conducive for her. So that is about the couple talk. So we also do entrepreneurship program to the parents. We try to mentor them on business skills and try to help them with some startup, so that at least someone can afford school fee. So that is under advocacy, we have leadership program. Before you go to leadership so that we understand the advocacy well, the one you've said under entrepreneurship. So this is the one that you help the parents in coming up with business startups and all that. So do you give them financial aid to start up this business? Right now we only do the mentorship part because we have very limited funding for this and actually we are still looking for partnership as well under this program so that we can give them the support, the full support they need when we talk about business skills, teach them how to run their businesses. We can also talk about the startups. Some little funding for them to start their businesses or maybe boost their business. And the case on GBV, how efficient is it? Do the parents listen? Yes, they do listen. We had one and this one we partnered with Strathmore University. It was under gender equality at home. So this was about communication. How do you communicate at home? Do you guys sit down and talk about financial matters? Do you discuss about how much are you getting and how much I'm getting? Can we put together and do something together as a family? Your vision as a family, what is your vision as a family? Not you, but as a family. Do you sit down your kids and talk to them freely? Like understand what is going on with their lives? At some point, do you share their house chores? Like it's not about all women around your American friends. So can you sit down and talk to them in the morning? In the evening, do you talk to them? Maybe wherever they are, can you help out with their house chores? So when we did the first, that was the pilot program. We just did a pilot and then we really talked. You find the men, when they come in for the first time, they talk about how they were raised, how their parents have been bringing up their families, how they've been handling issues in their homes. And you see, when they talk about their parents, when they talk about their grandparents, these are people who believe that men are the ones to have a say. Women don't talk. Women are there to be seen and to be heard. Yes, you're there to be seen but not to be heard. But when we talk, when we continued the program, we realized most of them were the ones who had adapted. Actually, they realized, okay, this is where we go wrong and this is what we should be doing. And they know the impact that the violence has on their children. Yes, some of them could say, We just have a talk and that is where communication comes in. Can we talk about it? There's an issue, can we talk about it? It's not all about shouting. Because if you shout, we have kids around. How do they take it? What is in his mind or her mind? We are just thinking about us. It's all about me but not the people in this house. So the program was actually tailored for that, to bring a conducive home for these kids. When they go to school, at least when they come back, they find a peaceful home. And from that pilot project, did you see it working? Were there success stories? Yes, yes, actually. We had 24 couples and it was amazing. Because at the end of it now, everyone could open up. They were like, okay, this is where I knew I was going wrong. And the women could come and say, hey, actually this program, it made us ideas and because my husband has never. But once we started this, I was like, okay, this is where I came from. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to open up. I was like, okay, this is where I came from. I was like, okay, I'm going to go back to school. I'm going to go back to where I came from. So it was something, we saw it, had brought a very good impact. And I wish to get part of funding. We continue with it because it's really needed. Sayizi, life has turned out to be so difficult to some couples because it involves around the money. Finances are the root cause of the problem. Yes, so the kids want school fees. Sayizi Chakula is in a triple crisis. Rent in a tiny corner. Some men flew away, we don't want to disappear. Exactly. Yes, we don't want to disappear. And during COVID-19, that is when we saw even wonders. People just disappeared. Disappearing. Yes. So we need to have a lot of this talk. So what you're asking for is funding. Yes, for this, for actually the couple talks, the GBV to fight GBV in our communities. Okay. Tell us about the leadership program. The leadership program, we try to push women, more women into leadership positions. And this is leadership to the institution and political level. And we do this to try and fight, try and have this two-third gender rule of which is still far away from realization. So having the two-third, we can have, when we have many women, more women into leadership positions, actually they can create or rather implement policies that can create a good environment in our Kenya today for the growth system of the girl child. All right. So how do you identify women to be mentored in the leadership positions? We did this in partnership just recently, because we actually had a dinner and celebrated the young women, the first cohort we had. And this we did in partnership with other organizations. We had with Siasa Place, Badili Africa, and ForumSiv was actually the founder. And we did a successful one since we had 30 young women who came through the program. Actually we had many who had applied, but due to the resources we had, we could only take in 30. And we were so glad that we had 30 women from Nakuru, and Nairobi because that was our target area. And right now some of them have actually, how do I call this? Have registered for the nominations with their parties and they will be vying the coming election. We just pray for them. Yes, because this thing you are not given, you have to go for it and take it. How do you ensure that you mentor them in the right directions because they might take the leadership positions and then things remain the way they are? So what are you doing differently? We talk to them on how to handle matters, let's say, how do I call this? Media, matters media. The way the society has become too harsh for a woman that when you try to support someone or maybe you try to vie for a political position, people will look for ways to bring you down. And this involves around your family, they want to look for something to talk about you in the family, how to handle matters campaigns. So we could talk about this, like we prepare them for the coming campaigns and the position as well to fight for the position. And more than that, more than preparing for that, what when they get into that particular position that they are going for, because some are voted in because of various reasons, but how do we ensure that we have the right leaders, the right women leaders in the right position? Because we have had women leaders, but what difference are they bringing? You see, we all, as we advocate for women to be in the leadership positions, obviously I cannot tell you will be the right person once you get to the position. Our job is to mentor you to become that person you were not before you came in. So the rest we live to you, we live on to you because we now know, like if you are a woman, you're supposed to go fight for your other women, the policies that favor women in the community, not only a woman, because you've just said it, when you educate a woman. You've educated the whole community. Yes, so women have a good heart. So we believe when you go out there, you will go with putting our interest as women first, fight for us. You know the things women go through. You know the hurdles women go through in the society. So your first job is to go out there, fight for your other women that you've left behind. So us is to mentor you, to mold you, and then we leave you to go now, do your part as the leader you become. Okay, and I believe leadership is all about service. Serving others, when you're a leader, you are a servant. Yes, yes. And you've shown that in your own, you know, life experience. That's how you came about with Inua Kike. You are empowered and you choose to empower others. So take us through this, your journey. Wow, okay, Inua Kike is Susan. If you see Inua Kike, you see Susan, because Inua Kike was inspired by my story. We are seven siblings in our family, four sisters and three brothers. So it was really difficult for our parents to take us all through school. And it got to some point that I had to drop out of secondary school. This was in 2006 and got into a relationship, marriage, per se. But it couldn't last long since it was an abusive one. Going back home, here I am. Let me take you back. You dropped out of school because of school field. And then you got married, but didn't last. Yes, didn't last. So I took my baby back. We separated. I took my baby back. He was one week old. And now going back, we used to stay in a single room. Some of us could sleep on the floor. Some of us on the chair. We have our parents. Yes, just one room, all of us there. The seven of you, seven children. Yes, plus my two cousins. Seven children, your two cousins. And now you're bringing on your one week old baby. Yes, in Madari. We used to stay in Madari. In a single room. Yes. Wow, okay. How was that? Difficult. Because these are family where, at some point, for us, we wait for dad to take him to school. Because he used to work in the industrial area. And actually, when I dropped out, my job was at that time. Because my job was at that time. She's a tailor. She's still a tailor in Pakasai. So she used to do tailoring. And in the morning, she used to go to school and work. And she used to make money and work. Actually, if not for her, she'd have some. A strength of a woman. Yes, because she used to, like, I really admire my mom. Moms are just amazing. With that big family. With that big family. And make sure to, because my dad, he and I, he used to go to school in the end of the month. And he used to go to school. Mom. He used to go to school. He used to go to school. He pays rent. And he used to eat and drink. He used to go to school. He used to go to school. He used to go to school. So I'm the mother of him. Yes, so I'm the mother. She used to go to school. And I have a wife. She used to go to school. I have my wife. I have a kid. She used to let me sleep. She used to use the bathroom. She used to use the bathroom. And they used to kick me. And she used to carry me around the house. So taking all of us through school was really... I could really feel the pain she was going through. So I had to... Like, when I dropped out, I thought I could help. help her through this because for KIA it was really really difficult yes so me I opted maybe Nipatiane space I go get married also that's why you got yes yes so when I went to that relationship didn't last it didn't last and I had to come back with my kid so seven two cousins my dad mom 9 10 11 I'm coming back 11 now you're 12 yes I'm coming back with my kid plus me so see what it was my dad used to be told a plotty what all kind of job I'm just a tool is they will ember back or not so we ain't easy it wasn't easy I tried looking for jobs but I couldn't I wasn't successful jimamboya KCC certificate everywhere you gonna come be a KCC certificate from form for owner so luckily enough I got one yeah kufa gear compound who consent Benedict that was my first job yeah kufanya so I could try to hustle because before I got that job it was really difficult at a tourism total you come to Tom Dogo I'm so much stressed me met up with a relationship yes yes so my mind young boy co like I'm so very much stressed I think he understood yes I think he understood at some point I'm so he's my strength Exactly. Did you ask, did you get strength from that? Yes. Yes. It's actually my strength. So to kind of learn a life, I hustle, I come to St. Benedict to sweep the compound. You get paid a thousand bob in a week and you're in a kitchen. So once I was able to pop in, there was a state market. So I could go there. Yes. And there was no one else who was able to clean the house. So once I was able to clean the house, there was no one else who was able to clean the house. Yes. Because they would ask me to pack my things. Pack my things. Yes. And my dad would say, if you don't have cash, you can't afford it. Yes. So I'm a mom. And my mom would pressure me to have lunch. Sometimes I would have lunch, breakfast and lunch. Sometimes I would have lunch. We were even branded because there's this woman, we were used to buy Gideri. Gideri lunch. Gideri lunch. Gideri lunch. So I was like, I don't know if it's because I'm a woman. I was like, I'm not a woman. I was like, I'm not a woman. I'm not a woman. I'm not a woman. I'm not a woman. Wow, okay. It was that bad. Yes. So luckily enough, after that job, I was doing these community work, that is where I began with my community work. And I met a young lady called Sasha. So Sasha took me to power 254. Yeah, Boniface Mwangi. So that is where I started my job. I was a volunteer. I started my data entry. And then I came to work. My job was to be an assistant project manager under Kenyan Equetu Program. I started my job. And then I realized, this is the job you can do. It's tender. It's easy to do. It's not hard to do anything. So I talked to Sasha. I said, Sasha, I want to go back to school. I hear students are being registered at this moment. So I was like, one week, your registration is over. Sasha came through and I went to school. I went through the door. After I went through the door, I went to the third or second door. I went through the door, and it was summer. Mum and Dad separated and she was with the whole family. The whole family. Wow. Everyone, all the members of their family, What number were you called again? Number two. Number two. Number one didn't have a job. So from number one to number seven, plus your baby, all of them. So with surrounding the environment it is not favorable for us because everyone is talking about us. How come mom didn't take her kids with her? I don't know. She just felt like, hey, bugger. So I had to become a mother at that young age. I had to become a mother to my siblings and my son. So my son used to go to school. I have to pay rent. So I had to leave my siblings and go to my mother's house. But after going to a single room, I looked for a double decker and some of us could sleep on the floor. So that is how I came here. Actually, I remember when a man comes, maybe he doesn't have a date, he goes to the first thing in the house, so he goes to the first thing in the house. This is what I have been thinking. No, no, no. The next day, he goes silent out of the house. So even when he goes to the house, he goes to the first thing in the house. And I stayed for long. So it was difficult because I had a tutor at home because Sasha had paid for the tutor as well. So the tutor would go to the first thing in the house. You have your kids who go to school and go to the first thing in the house. You have your family members who go to the first thing in the house and they want to eat. You have to buy food and everything. And then you have to concentrate on the summer. Yes, you went to a good one. Yes. So I had limited time in the summer. Luckily enough, I got a visa and I got my certificate. Coincidentally, the job was a part of my education. So I had to look for another job which I got at Baus Optical. Now that certificate helped me to get a job at Baus Optical. So the KC certificate is that important? Yes, very much important. At a size, there are some other things in the house. People ask for it. Yes, because you want to know who you are living your kids with. So it's becoming a requirement right now for any job opportunity. I've gone through so much in life. I've seen girls like me going through the same situations. Luckily for me, I got someone who held my hand at that moment and pushed me up and boosted my life. What about these other girls? When they drop out of secondary school due to early pregnancies, early marriages, or maybe lack of school fee. When I get married, I need to go back to school. Because this is what I wanted, but I'm a father. Life doesn't end here. I still have to fight and get what I want. I should fight for my vision to make sure that I stay up and get what I want. And maybe Anna means that she's in secondary school. She has the will, but she doesn't have the will. So that is how Inua Kike came about. How did you form it? You had the idea. I had the idea. How did you implement it? I had the idea. Now I needed some support to implement it. I didn't even know how to run a project. But now this is where Akilidada comes in. Akilidada, I applied for the fellowship program for one year. That is where I went to be mentored on project management, how to handle your project on matters, finances, and all that. So the first grant we got from Akilidada, that is what implemented in Inua Kike's program, Somesh Akike program. That's how it came about. I'm wondering how you had the drive to do this, yet you still have a whole family behind you. And you're adding on another responsibility. How was that? It's matters of passion and perseverance. I think it's just passion. How I'm passionate about women in my community. How I'm passionate. How I envision our women to be in our communities. So this drives me so much to do more, actually. Because I do more and then I... I don't know if anyone would like to know. Like, I do what I want to do, but I have no idea. And I do what I want to do. I have no idea. I do my part and then let you be. You let it be? Yes. So actually if you want to come and give back to the community, you just come, you mentor, we can invite you to come and mentor like we do. Some of the students that had already gone through the program, they come back, they give their stories to the others to feel how important that thing is and what you have to do to actually get to where you want to be. So it's actually about storytelling. You come, I tell my story. Because people want stories they can relate to and that makes a difference. And actually we are having some women, actually not women, young girls under 18 who have kids, kids having kids. And they are so comfortable with their lives in Madare. There are so many of them in Ukiyo no Unashituka. They dropped out, and they are very comfortable with their lives. They even tell you, see, it's not a problem. They even tell you, you see there was this, we used to say you trade sex for pads. For them they do it for pampers. They say a one after, like they don't care, so long as women do whatever they want to do, get that money to just come and buy pampers. And they are too comfortable, too sad in their comfort zone. That's sad. So how do you go for these girls or do they need to come to you? We go for them. Like we try to give, to do mentorship. Like we've said right now, we have very limited resources, so we can't help everyone. We would wish to have, to help as many as we can. But due to our limited resources, even during COVID-19, we came through, like this was supported by Manchester University. They came through and we distributed food baskets to more than 500 families in Korogocho, Madare, Babadogo. It was just to young mothers, not older women. We could do this to young mothers because we understood at that moment. And this is where we had a crisis of girls dropping out of school due to the early pregnancies. The number was so high. So we could reach out to them, talk to them and then do mentorship. We don't just go and give you the food basket. We first mentored them. We first talked to you. We understand the difficulties you're going through at that moment. If you need to talk to someone personally, we leave our phone number so that you can call us and then we send someone to you. And this was really helpful to so many women. And why is it important to first mentored them to change their mindset and mentality first? People go through stress on a daily basis. What do we do with our shoes? We don't talk to anyone. You talk to her, it's important, but she can't verify. So you first of all need to talk to them. You share your stories, you talk. Like let him or her feel free to talk to you and make you understand what she or him or her is going through at that moment. So you need to prepare their minds psychologically. Would you say this is your purpose? Yes, this is what I was born for. You found purpose through what you went through? Yes, yes, yes. I really want, we are not thinking of only in Madare because we want to move to other parts of the country as well. We want to bring these programs to other counties. But if we get the partners to do this we will move not only in Kenya but internationally as well. Those countries that have vulnerable ladies, women who want education. What gives you satisfaction out of all this as we come to a clue? What brings you the joy that is the satisfaction? The fact that when I do all this and I see the girls you're trying to fight for or maybe try to bring a change into their lives doing what is expected of them and being passionate and being there to make sure they reach to their goals that gives me satisfaction. And the fact that I go home I see my kids we are all healthy it gives me more satisfaction. If there's someone watching and they want to be part of the program they've been at home, they've been hopeless but they want to come back to school. So how do they do it? How do they get you? Our office is in Madare Bethany Church 2930 Madarenov. You can also send us a message through Facebook page on Messenger. I can also share my phone number. Our website is inuakike.org We have YouTube channel inuakike. Our tutor is at inuakike. The Facebook page is inuakike. As we close talk to a girl out there that is going through a lot they have dropped out of school they don't have any work opportunities because they don't have a certificate they're feeling hopeless basically. So talk to them. It doesn't end there. If you have a dream fight for it. No one else will do it for you but you'll have to do it yourself. Get out of the comfort zone and let's go get what we really want in our lives. So it doesn't end there. Get out if you want to go back to school look for these opportunities go back to school get your certificate further your education or maybe get a decent job using the certificate. If you're looking for a job do not give up keep on fighting until you get it. Do not give up keep on fighting until you get it. Get out of your comfort zone. Okay thank you. We celebrate you Susan what you're doing is very incredible. You indeed are the kind of women that you want in our society. Thank you for inspiring us today. Thank you, thank you. Alright that has been Susan that has been Susan that has been Susan the CEO and founder of Inua Kike who has been talking to us about women empowerment through education. I hope you feel inspired know that it is never too late as long as you can fight fight for it never give up. We take a small break and we'll be back with the next interview at the gallery.