A crusade to uplift the lowly

By Juma Kwayera

Two decades ago, Rev Elizabeth Wahome was the object of scorn and cultural marginalisation for being an unwed mother.

But she would not be cowed. And finally, years of dogged determination and drive to serve womankind climaxed a fortnight ago when the Latin University of Theology in the United States conferred her with an honorary degree in theology to commemorate more than 40 years of fighting stereotypes and prejudices so common in African patriarchal cultures.

In its commendation, the university cited her personal struggle to overcome cultural inhibitions and selfless service to scores of women from broken homes or marriages, whose shattered dreams have been restored by her efforts.

Rev Elizabeth Wahome displays her honorary degree in theology she was awarded for her selfless service to women from broken families and marriages.

Like many other African girls at the time, she was forced to drop out of school in Standard Eight in the 1960s to pave way for her brothers to go school.

"The decision by my parents and relatives almost ruined my life. They wanted me to get married, but when I declined and insisted that I wanted to continue with school, they turned their back on me. This is when the seed for the crusade for women’s rights and, especially, the right to own or inherit property was sowed," she told the Sunday Magazine.

She got involved in gender parity issues as soon as she was employed in 1970. She put on hold any plans to get a husband until she was sure that she had "enough" education to see her through life.

Juggle responsibilities

"To do this, I had to juggle my responsibilities as a police officer and my personal aspirations in life. I read privately for junior secondary education that climaxed when I passed the Kenya Junior Secondary Education (KJSE) which earned me a promotion," she said.

However, the burning ambition for better education was interrupted when she got involved with a workmate.

"I had a love affair with a fellow police officer, who got me pregnant and denied responsibility," she said.

Unplanned pregnancy and a child out-of-wedlock settled her case as an incorrigible girl.

Her family back home in Kihumbuini village, Murang’a, where she was born in the 1940s, gave up on her as it appeared she would never find a man to marry her.

The church, which she had served with dedication, tagged her a sinner.

"I was betrayed by the church and had no shoulder to lean on when everything was going wrong in my life. There was (and still is) discrimination against single women," says the woman who started serving God in 1982.

She vowed to correct the perception that a single woman is a disgrace to the society she lives in by raising her daughter single-handedly. She resigned from the police force and took up a job as a laboratory technician, which afforded her more time to dedicate to the cause of single women, 50 per cent of whom, she says, are single mothers from broken marriages or families.

Her daughter, Regina, has gone on to become a leading presenter with a local TV station.

Leading crusader

Elizabeth’s involvement in the plight of single women, especially the retrogressive cultural prejudices that inhibit women’s upward mobility on the socio-economic ladder, has elevated her to a leading crusader for women’s advancement in Africa.

"Women’s economic and social empowerment will materialise the day we have many women in positions of influence and decision-making. We have few role models and one of my objectives is to lead woman out of the social pigeonholes to prosperity. We must be able to compete with men on the same footing without waiting for favours," she says.

Elizabeth and her husband, Joseph Wahome. The couple support various projects undertaken by Slim. Photos: Martin Mukangu/Standard

It is this objective that has earned Elizabeth recognition in Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where her Single Ladies International Ministry (Slim) — a Christian non-governmental organisation — has missions. She now shares platforms with renowned women’s leaders such as Prof Wangari Maathai and Graca Marcel Mandela, whose role in the liberation of women is billed as iconic.

Acquiring skills

The organisation has 1,000 registered single women, who are acquiring various skills including HIV and Aids management, business skills and management at a college she founded in Zimmermann, off Thika Road, Nairobi.

The college offers counselling and legal services, marital guidance, reconciling broken families, anti-female genital mutilation and early marriage campaigns and reproductive health services.

The services are financed with money from the supermarket business she has successfully built with her husband.

How did she finally end up getting married despite the ‘odds’?

She says it all started during a church visit to the poor and sick in 1989.

"I accompanied three other women to the house of ‘an ailing old man who was staring death in the face’. When the weak and sickly man struggled to stand up and shake my hand, everyone in the group was surprised," she recalls.

She later learnt that the old man had mistaken her for his wife who had passed on.

"The old man called me the following day to tell me how much I resembled his former wife. Without even asking my name, he proposed to marry me. I did not object, but I was taken aback because this was an old man who was closer to the grave than marriage. He quickly fixed the wedding date for December 15. Before I could respond, he hung up," says Elizabeth, now a successful social worker and businessperson, away from what she calls her core responsibility as a spiritual healer.

Dying man

The "dying man" was Joseph Wahome, a widower with five children who was at time of the church visit holed up in rickety leaking iron-sheet and timber hovel in Kasarani estate. His five children were utterly malnourished, wore torn clothes that barely covered their backsides, while their bodies were a pathetic sight of scurvy and ringworms.

At the time of the encounter, Elizabeth was a laboratory technician at the International Centre for Insect and Pest Epidemiology (Icipe) in Nairobi, earning just enough to sustain herself and her daughter, Regina. Wahome on the other hand was the real face of poverty — condemned to die in squalor.

Their status has changed, after Wahome overcame his sickness. He is now the main financier of his wife’s activities.

Elizabeth pokes fun at their first date at City Park, Nairobi, sipping sodas and gnawing away at mandazis. But, in retrospect, she says this was the time the seed of their success was sowed.

"I dedicated myself to nursing the ailing man until he recovered fully to take up his responsibilities as head of our family," she says.

What followed is a rare tale of careful planning that has hoisted the humble from the precipice of deprivation.

Whereas they could hardly afford soda and mandazi on their first date, today they are influencing social and cultural attitudes in Africa through Slim.

They began their journey to marriage by working out a "memorandum of understanding" that they would never have any more children.

"It was perhaps the best decision we ever made in our lives. It has given us time to concentrate on serving humanity and bringing up our six children," she says.

In an ordinary African setting, the two would have opted to have more children to cement their bond as husband and wife.

Interestingly, Elizabeth met her husband three years after she cancelled a wedding after her fiancÈ conned her of Sh5,000.

"This was two weeks before the wedding. He betrayed the trust I had in him after he cheated me out of the money. It was the last thing I expected from a man who would become my husband," she recounts.

Critical component

Elizabeth sees the election of Barack Obama as US president as a statement that single women are a critical component of society.

"Obama’s mother raised him single-handedly. Their story is familiar across Africa, but no one credits women for their outstanding work in raising their children and guiding them to successful careers. The election of Obama has brought out the best in women and it should be a motivation," she says.

The Obama story, she adds, has given her the encouragement that the mission she embarked on when she was single and an unwed mother to change societal attitudes towards single women will be accomplished one day.

"We now know that irrespective of the obstacles we face, we can bear and nurture future presidents. Fear has been our main drawback," she says.

 

 

 

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