My Dream For Makueni

When l called to remind her about our interview, Adelina Ndeto Mwau insisted I had to meet her in Makueni since her tight working schedule couldn’t allow her to travel to the city.

Being the deputy governor for Makueni County, Adelina’s diary is always full. I travelled to Makueni where I spent a day with the woman who has turned to be the mother of thousands of people in the region.

Her day starts at St Teresa Academy, Kilungu, a school she established in 2006 to help underprivileged and vulnerable children.

Adelina came back to the political arena during the last elections after five years in the cold, a time she says was spent to understand and interact with Makueni residents.

“After losing the Kaiti Parliamentary race to Gideon Ndambuki in 2007, I decided to go back to the grassroots and interact with the people to know what could have gone wrong. This gave me the chance to prepare for the big role that I am now shouldering,” she says.

During this time, Adelina launched Women Research Centre for Development Institute, a platform she has been using to fight gender violence in Makueni.

Adelina who has a lofty dream for Makueni County, says top on her agenda is to ensure thousands of unemployed youth who send hundreds of CVs to her daily, get jobs.

Desperate youth

 “I feel sad every morning I open my email account and get hundreds of CVs and application letters from young men and women most of whom are graduates, this is one thing I wish I would address as long as I am the deputy governor of this county,” she says.

Also topping her list is food security. She says Makueni though a semi-arid region, has the potential to produce for its people and surplus for sale. 

“Makueni residents are full of expectations for the first time in more than 50 years of independence. They see devolution as their saviour,” she adds.

Born in 1952 in Kilungu, Adelina followed her mother’s footsteps — she was also a politician.

Her mother, Teresia Nundu Mwau was the first woman to contest for the councillor’s position in Kilungu. She was also at one time the nominated councillor for Machakos.

Adelina says her quest to outshine her male counterparts started when she was still a student at Kenya High School, where competition was so stiff since the school was then a reserve for the rich.

Before her debut in politics, Adelina taught at Thomeandu Boys Primary School after graduating from Machakos Teachers College in 1972.

She later quit teaching and enrolled for a diploma course in Adult Education under a church scholarship at the University of Nairobi.

adult educater

After finishing her course, Adelina got a job with the Catholic Church, Ngong’ Diocese as its national adult education consultant, where she used the chance to reach out to more women.

“Those days, women were treated like lesser beings. Young girls could be married off in exchange of cows, goats and a few coins. I knew I had a role to play if Kenya was to have women leaders in future,” she says.

The programme was later disbanded over undisclosed reasons by the government, robbing her a chance to advance her empowerment initiative.

“We were accused of having a subversive mission, spies were put in place to monitor our civic activities and to intimidate those involved. Our sponsors opted out and we went back to the drawing board,” she recalls.

Adelina says she, however, didn’t give up. In 1983, she moved to Marsabit and started a similar programme.

In Marsabit, she was forced to carry on with her empowerment activities secretly as the government had already banned such programmes.

“A few daring priests would meet secretly, especially after Sunday mass and strategise since they really wanted women to get a voice,” says Adelina.

Gender officer

She left Marsabit three years later to pursue her MA in Development Studies in Holland. Then, it was possible to do a Masters outside the country after acquiring a diploma. After the course, she joined Oxfam Kenya, as a gender officer in 1988.

Her effort to empower women earned her a ticket to Parliament as a nominated MP in 2002.

She will also be remembered for playing a pivotal role in the establishment of the Coalition on Violence Against Women (Covaw).

She co-authored a training manual on gender and reproductive rights for the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In Parliament, she was among the leading voices for affirmative action on gender equity and called for the zero rating of sanitary towels for schoolgirls.