Wahu Kaara and Danica Anderson, Female Solidarity

 

Wahu Kaara, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee/Winner 2005, board member of the Kolo: Women’s Cross Cultural Collaboration is a leading advocate for social justice in Kenya. She says: “African women are not dying for Africa anymore; they want to live for Africa.” She works for the Kenya Debt Relief Network (Kendren), the African Social Forum and the Kenya Social Forum. Her political activities define her radical nature and instead of her name or stereotyped roles females play, Wahu’s identity is the community she keeps.

A 53-year-old widow, describes herself as a global social justice activist. The former history and Kiswahili teacher says she has been radical from an early age, having been involved in promoting social justice and economic democracy for 30 years.

Despite the repression from the government and the hard times she experienced when her husband was forced into exile, the mother of four relentlessly worked locally and is today involved internationally in the African Social Forum and the Kenya Debt Relief Network, and she is also one of the main leaders of Katiba Watch, the main lobby group spearheading the ongoing mass mobilization in Kenya around the demand for a new constitution.

We can learn more about Wahu through a series of quotes and pieces from conversations I had with her in Toronto, Canada for the Genevieve Vaughn sponsored (M) Otherworld Conference.

This is Wahu’s voice and identity:

All movements we do must know how to connect making what we know.

Refuse to be a victim. Stand up in your power.

Fertility of Women’s Spirituality

Women are being dislocated and disoriented.

We need to stop the unending re-inventing and re-engineering of women, who we are.

The matriarchy is the heartbeat of the community. The waking up of the people….

How matriarchy is a community not a system. We have to show how it works. We get lost when we do not connect all.