Maureen Bii, the founder of Kipkogo Ogiek Women and Youth Empowerment Program and the Huts of Knowledge has dedicated her entire life to the empowerment of the indigenous Ogiek community in Kenya. She is a Peace and Conflict Resolution & Training Practitioner, a community development champion, and a women & youth advocate that is driven by her personal fight for freedom. Her story shows us that we need to appreciate and utilize the rights we have been given because thousands of miles away lived an eight-year-old girl with a far-fetched dream to access her basic human rights.

This is Maureen’s story …

The Ogiek are a marginalized minority and indigenous hunter-gatherer community native to the Mau Forest with a population of 52 000 out of a total of 50 million Kenyans. The history of the Ogiek community, scattered across 6 counties in the Rift Valley region of Kenya is one marred by injustices such as the lack of citizenship rights, displacement, and recurring land disputes but discrimination is prevalent both against the Ogiek community and within the Ogiek community. Patriarchal leadership has been unrelenting towards indigenous Ogiek women and girls, depriving them of access to an education and healthcare and enabling harmful cultural practices such as child marriages and female genital mutilation (FGM).

In 1992, when my mother heard whispers in the neighbourhood, for my hand in marriage, at the tender age of 8, she refused to present me, the fourth of her five children, as a wife to the village elder. My mother, a hardworking woman, with no education and struggling to feed five children when my father left us, planned my escape, to make sure I achieved my dream of attaining my education. She sent me away to live with her sister in another village in Nakuru, the county of my birth, to save me from the clutches of early marriage and FGM.

Initially, I took shelter with my aunt to attend school but because she too, had financial difficulties, I sought out employment to pay for my education and would live and work in the homes of my employers, who were kind enough to allow me to attend school. It was not easy, as the school would frequently send me home due to outstanding fees.

It was a recurring problem since there were also limited access to technology and a subsequent lack of information on scholarships, which meant that it took me years to complete my primary and secondary education. While at school, I never complained about my situation, to anyone, nor did anyone notice but when I became more focused on my academics and participated in school drama activities, the teachers noticed my absence and questioned when I suddenly disappeared into thin air.

One of my teachers enquired after me, thinking I was married off, but she persisted in trying to locate me, to complete school. Finally, after two years, she found me. When she found out the cause of my absence was crippling school fees, she pleaded my case with the principal. With her support and fundraising initiative, I was able to finish my secondary education and settle my outstanding debt.

Six years after completing my secondary education, I finally managed to enrol in a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) degree at Kabarak University in Nakuru and zealously searched for scholarship opportunities at the Campus Library, for fear of dropping out. I stumbled upon and applied online for a Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) scholarship but received no response from the organization. Out of desperation, I took a four-hour bus trip from Nakuru to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to the FAWE’s Head Office, with no idea of where I would sleep that night. When the staff members heard my story, and saw my level of commitment, they sent me back home that same day, with the promise of awarding me a full scholarship and true to their word, they kept their promise for the entirety of my degree course.

It was during my second year of university, in 2008, aged 24, that I returned to the village from which I had to flee, in Nessuit, Nakuru, with the mission of creating awareness on gender equality and education empowerment. I realized the reason most of my people in the Ogiek community suffer is largely due to a lack of information. With the help of a presiding pastor, not native to the Ogiek community, we set out to provide information on scholarship availability.

Fortunately, during my third year of university, I was able to secure a job and sponsored the secondary education of two girls from the Ogiek community with the purpose of emancipating them from the cultural and poverty constraints. I also managed to secure scholarships, from organizations and good Samaritans, for ten more students, both girls and boys and in the subsequent years, a total of 75 students were sponsored. The outcome of my community participation has resulted in three medical doctors, two pilots, teachers, lawyers, marine engineers, and human resource specialists. ICT consultants, with other young men and women obtaining their economics and computer engineering degrees.

Before we could achieve such an outstanding level of success, we endured prejudice, intimidation, and resistance from the village leaders as there was a lot of discomfort in changing the status quo. However, in my absence, my most ardent supporter and teammate, Pastor Julius Lelei, was able to mobilize teachers to monitor their students to mitigate the chances of school dropouts due to the migration from the lowlands to the urban areas. Our work was also simplified by the evidence that in spite of fleeing my village in pursuit of an education, I still returned to my roots 16 years later, which proved to the village leaders that even if an Ogiek girl seeks out her education, she will still return home and invest in her people.

After graduating with a BCom degree and working full-time, I embarked on and completed my MBA at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) while doing numerous online courses from financial modelling to peace and conflict resolution. With my passion for empowering and developing the Ogiek community, I have founded two community-based organizations: Kipkogo Ogiek Women and Youth Empowerment Program and the Huts of Knowledge.

Kipkogo Ogiek Women and Youth Empowerment Program (KOWYEP), holds advocacy programs to highlight the problems of early marriages and female genital mutilation, provide education empowerment for children and focus on women empowerment. 

We create awareness of harmful cultural practices, among old women, who have been practicing the cut, by enlightening them on the dangers associated with FGM, such as diseases, health issues and death since the cultural mind frame is that a woman that has not undergone FGM, is an incomplete woman.  For girls, we empower them to attend classes every day and provide reusable sanitary towels, underwear, soap, and train them on menstrual health management. In addition, we also provide stationery, and writing materials to enable continuous learning. 

On women empowerment, we work closely with widows, single mothers, and teenage girls, and have started table banking, in collaboration with microfinance organizations, for 32 women who benefited from our small loans to start off income generating activities, to earn a decent income and to break away from poverty. We also offer a vocational training hub to train teenage girls’ entrepreneurial skills, like clothing and design, basket weaving, beading and agri-business. 

Our KOWYEP advocacy program has resulted in reducing the dropout rate of girls experiencing menstruation by 80% and have imparted knowledge on sexuality and self-awareness, killing FGM by 68%. We also have a teen mentorship program involving both girls and boys, to ensure that all Ogiek children get equal opportunities. We secure financial support for these children to continue their education and have also reduced illiteracy rates for future employment opportunities. 

Within the sphere of the Huts of Knowledge, we have built a classroom near the forest, to help children under the ages of five and have also added four mobile libraries for children, aged 3-7 years, that are unable to trek long distances, to school to enable them to learn informally, as they wait for the opportune time to attend school. These mobile libraries have tremendously improved the awareness of these young children and  have facilitated young mothers in their search for food for their kids, while knowing that their children are safe.

Going forward, the next focus is to build and establish an ICT centre for information sharing among students as there is none in the area. Information sharing will enable the Ogiek youth access to scholarship opportunities, farming information, grant opportunities, fellowships, online learning, and travel grants. Such opportunities are often taken for granted by many born into such luxuries or who live in close proximity to such access. 

Returning to my roots, with an empowered mind has gifted me with the honour of investing in my community. When I escaped, I fled with a vision of attaining my basic rights to an education even when the steps seemed insurmountable. Through my journey, I have learnt, with specific context to the injustices against the Ogiek community, is that empowered people are champions of peace. They help in bringing calm where there is conflict and bring understanding between warring parties and are able to support the fight for freedom through shared knowledge and wisdom. Thus, escaping from the lowlands of Kenya as a scared yet determined 8-year-old girl to the achievement of my dreams, and legacy, as a strong and empowered 38-year-old woman, has made all my sacrifices worth it.

If you are interested in learning more about Maureen or would like to get in contact with her, please reach out via her Facebook page, Kipkogo Ogiek Women Empowerment Program, or email her at hutsofknowledge@gmail.com.