 I'm a senior scientist now at the International Livestock Research Institute based in Nairobi. I work in livestock genetics and breeding, basically using the science of genetics and your knowledge as a geneticist to try and help improve the productivity of livestock. I was born the third born girl in a family of five children, but at that time girls were not important in communities. So initially of course my in-laws rejected my mother because I was the third girl in the row. So as a result of it, but my father always told me that no matter what you are always going to be important and it doesn't matter that he has all girls. So he always told us that girls are important and he always used to emphasize girls are important and he'd say let nobody let you down because you're a girl. So for me it wasn't a big issue because dad always used to say girls are very important. But you see now growing up I loved animals. I always loved animals. We grew up on a farm. I had my day of going to graze, I can only look after them. But he used to bring in these exotic animals, he used to love the black and white. My dad loved the black and white cattle, but they would die. They wouldn't live long and every time he would bring in others. So you know I told him dad when I grow up I will find out why these animals are dying. And that's what I'm doing up to now, you know finding out what is actually killing them, what in the environment affects them negatively. But the other thing I got to realize was the professions around livestock were very much dependent on the gender and whether you benefited or not from your livestock really depended on whether you're a man or a woman. And like for the smaller stock chicken, goats, sheep, women were allowed in communities as we work with them, the women are allowed to use them, they're allowed to get resources of them. But the minute you move to a cow, then there's a big gender gap. And yet all the labor, all the hard work around that cow is actually done by the woman. And so this is where when you realize actually in terms of livelihoods, in terms of livestock and livelihoods, the size of stock is very, very gender dependent, right. And when you are actually trying to help improve people's lives, you're really looking at which type of livestock they're keeping and which one they have actually control over. Like there's a project we are working on in Nyandu in the climate smart villages. Now that was a very interesting project for me to work on, particularly because it's a community that was negatively affected by HIV and AIDS. So you had a lot of the men had died in the society, but there were women, older women left, but the main asset they had are sheep and goats. Now some of them might have cattle, but do you know what, they can't make a decision on their cow. Just because they are women in that society, women cannot influence what happens to their cow. And even if the animal is sick, I watched an old woman consult her grandchild, a 10-year-old boy on what to do about a sick cow, and I was like, what? So these are some of the things that you begin to see really, really gender is a big issue when it comes to ownership, use, and even the ability to benefit from the sort of livestock resource that they have, but you know what can we do and what can science do is science the right answer. And if we keep on pushing that the women have to have the control over it, are we helping? Many times we are not, but many times we are. And how are we helping? Because once they start getting more of the product, then the women will benefit from the returns from that particular asset. So it's like if they have more milk from the cattle, then the women will be able to earn from it. But if the milk is little, then whatever income that is obtained from it, of course, benefits mainly the man in the society. And as much as I'm dealing with the women and trying to make a difference in their lives, I also have to take care of the men who are actually the owners or the authority within their homes, according to the society that you're going in.