Defending Access to Water
By Jackie Odhiambo
In a community in Rarieda in Siaya County, a Nyanam widow leader, Mama Hellen from Tieng’o Leadership Circle, is standing up for the rights of her community. Hellen has purposed to ensure that a new government project will not erode her community’s access to free water that is a lifeline for 25 communities, providing water to more than 20,000 households.
REPRESENTED BY A LEADER WHO ADVOCATES FOR WIDOWS
Rarieda Constituency is led by the able Otiende Amollo, who among many accolades, is a staunch advocate for widows. Amollo implements a housing project for widows in his constituency. The project protects widows from patriarchal and sexual predatory practices that claim a house can only be built by a man and requires a widow to sleep with a man for that man to build her a house.
Amollo cares about the development of his constituency and lobbied for the opening of a new branch of the National Youth Service (NYS) project in Rarieda. NYS is a national voluntary work and educational program where young Kenyans receive paramilitary and vocational training. The youths volunteer in public projects such as road construction and choose to join the military or further their education through government sponsorship. Amollo invited communities in Rarieda to bid for hosting this project.
LACK OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN THE NEW PROJECT
From Hellen’s community, a self-selected 25-man committee successfully bid for the project. Convinced of the benefits of the NYS project, this committee assumed its community’s support. In the committee’s mind, the project would improve access to electricity, tapped water and tarmac roads. With this excitement, the committee failed to seek the views of the community members.
“I didn’t know about the project,” Hellen says. “We were called to a meeting as people living in the vicinity of the project location.”
Hellen was not able to attend this meeting. Her neighbors reported back to her about the project, disgruntled that they were uninvolved in the decision to bid for the project, but were needed to sign off for the project.
“Apparently, this first meeting would count as “public participation” and we were being called to sign off on a project we were not consulted about,” Hellen fumes.
HELLEN STANDS FOR WHAT SHE BELIEVES IN
Mama Hellen felt personally and communally slighted that their voices did count on whether and how this project would be planted in their community. Concerned, she gathered her neighbors to discuss this project and determined their way forward.
“When we met to discuss the project, the police came and threatened to arrest us, labeling our meeting as illegal.”
Little did the wing that flew the police know that instead of scaring Hellen, they had summoned her inner power to stand for what she knew was right, justice.
Hellen led a protest that created an uproar in her community, causing men and women to brush shoulders in markets and farms, and paving way for a real public participation on the project. The fruit of Hellen’s agitation reminded me of a comment made by Dr. Ayoade from Nigeria in a recent Women Leaders In Global Health Conference in Rwanda, “If all the seats are taken at the table, step right up and sit on the table.” Figurately, Hellen sat on the table and all those sitting on the chairs around the table could not avoid her or neglect her voice.
The public meeting boiled with emotions. Hellen with four other men made a case for preserving the water dam.
“First of all, this whole project needed to start with us as a community discussing our interests and electing a committee to represent those interests. We don’t know how this 25-man committee came to be and who gave them the power to speak on our behalf,” Hellen was adamant.
“We have the lake near us but no beach from where to fetch water. This dam has served 25 communities for years and its water level has never rescinded. How can we replace this dam with the NYS project that may not even create employment opportunities for our people,” Hellen insisted.
This water dam is also a government project in the same location where the NYS project was to be planted. The dam provides water to over 20,000 households. The committee’s failure to listen to and respond to questions raised about the project weakened their stance.
The community voted. Despite the benefits of the NYS project, the dam exhibited immediate and important benefits that the community was not ready to let go. Amollo saw and listened. The public land wasn’t also big enough for the NYS project, some suspect due to encroachment of community members residing near the dam. This decision split the community. Some felt they had lost an important project and others felt they had protected an important project.
Hellen is unperturbed. She feels she may have over-reacted but believes in the position she took. While some of the committee members said, “she is just a woman, how can a woman defeat us?”, Hellen responded, “we cannot live in a community where men just come up and do things because they are men.”
A HISTORY OF WIDOWS LEADING
Hellen reminds me of Mekatilili Wa Menza, a young widow from the Giriama Community in Coastal Kenya, who stood above all odds to fight over the protection of her community’s land from the British colonial. Like Mekatilili, Hellen uses her strong voice and powerful reasoning and persuasion ability to stand for and defend what she believes is right. Above all, Hellen says she prayed, “God, I want this victory to be for women in my community.”
Water has been a battlefront for African women. Nyanam was birthed in a water management crisis that saw women like Hellen dismissed and ignored. Rural women spend hours laboring to access clean and safe water for their households. Hellen is protecting this resource for herself and for the future generations.
She leads Tieng’o Leadership Circle where she meets with 30 other widows bi-weekly to discuss their spiritual, psychosocial, and economic development. She is an astute teacher and an enterprising woman. Hellen’s leadership embodies the mission of Nyanam: to prepare widows to lead positive social transformation in their communities. I thank and celebrate Hellen’s leadership, and encourage all women, to agitate for the protection of what is rights.
“I stood firm,” she says, “I was the only woman among four men who stood firm for the protection of our dam.”