Today I encourage each single woman and the man as well to have a voice and play their part in creating such a world. A world where each voice counts.
Where I come from, such a world is far from being a reality. It has been that skewed since I was a small boy.
My name is Erick Matsanza from western part of Kenya. My dad left home for greener pastures to another country believed to be the land of opportunities the very year I was born, he returned 10 years later empty-handed and unfortunately died one year after his return. He left behind my mother, a strong woman who took care of seven siblings, three boys and four girls.
Communication between mum and dad cut off 5 years after my dad had left signalling tough times ahead for us as a family. Mum had to struggle and ensure that we are educated as education was a status symbol in the society. Being a last born, my elder siblings cleared school and started working. My mother was encouraged and thought that my siblings would support my education. This however didn’t happen.
One Friday evening when I arrived home after being sent home for missing payment of the school fee and was playing with my village boys that I overheard an exchange of words inside the house and my name kept on propping up in the bitter conversation. What I heard was building a dark cluster on my mind as it signalled an end to my education. My mum had explained to the only men in the family the reason why I was home and that had prompted the talk. No one was willing to take responsibility for my school fee and my mum was not just about to give up on the only child in the family remaining to be educated.
A rainbow appeared in the East and this signaled a good omen of the day as my sister who was a librarian walked in. On witnessing the exchange between my brothers she decided to take me with her so I could continue my education.
Today I stand tall because I am inspired by the actions of my mum and my sister. Their actions convinced me that empowering women is the best way to empower communities in order to improve society. And the journey to catalyze social change has become more focused as I came to kanthari to obtain skills that are required to effectively start this project.
I envision an open-minded world transformed by the critical and creative voice of the women. I envision a world in which the knowledge of marginalized communities is center-staged in the public discourse, and in which they have an equal voice in shaping the direction of their countries – at a hyper-local and a national level.
I believe that if the voices of the women are heard, better and more equitable policies will be created. Whether it is by providing the immediate, frontline response (‘will this development initiative work in my village and why or why not?’) or by ensuring solutions are grounded in the needs of the average person, promoting the voices of the women is crucial to the world’s development and its democracy. Only when the voices of women in the communities are heard by all decision-makers, will the corridors of power open for true democracy.
I believe that the democratic technologies of today – video and the internet –create a unique opportunity to create direct links between communities and authorities. Through the sheer size of their collective voice when it will flood the internet and the media, the women will be able to force those in power to listen to them, rather than waiting to be asked their opinions.
I believe in community-led change, and in the power of local solution-finders to inspire a change in thinking in people.
I believe that community media creates an important shift in a community, from a mentality that ‘the government will solve everything,’ to one where people know they can solve problems on their own.
The problem I seek to address is that decisions regarding human rights particularly women rights and development are taken without the participation of the women themselves. This top-down approach – in which academic or professional knowledge is more highly valued than lived experience - means that decision-makers make decisions that don’t work, and women remain discriminated and marginalized. This top-down approach often creates systemic human rights violations in which the government is involved.
My mission is to empower women with journalistic, critical thinking and creative skills they need to right the wrongs they witness in the society. This will enable the women from the margins of society to be producers of content so they can tell their own stories about their everyday lives, rights and entitlements (or violations thereof), and thereby represent themselves and assert their right to participate in development planning. We will bring out the voices of the women so that better decisions get made.
I want to create a network of women Change makers and on setting up a women network of Spicy Citizen Journalists. I will focus on improving the lives of the people of western Kenya by amplifying their voices so they can assert their rights and laws get enforced.
A Spicy Citizen Journalist will be a woman reporter who represents community needs, and not the needs of a corporate media house. She is an activist who uses journalistic, critical thinking and creative skills for providing evidence (to authorities), for mobilizing (communities), and for inspiring (the rest of the world to support her struggle for justice and change.) She is someone who knows how to use a communications technology as simple as $100 video-enabled cell phone to document human rights abuses as well as local successes. She is someone who knows, even more crucially, how to push that information out into a strong distribution system (as will be created by Spice Chungu) that is focused on connecting the women amongst themselves, and with the world.
At the core of my strategy is to create model that can be scaled all across the country. The characteristics of this model is entrepreneurial, scalable, low cost, and delivers concrete impact in the community while enabling thousands more people outside the community to participate in the actions to create impacts.
I want to create a model with the future in mind and will incorporate all new technologies as they come about and can easily be tailor-made with other developmental programs being implemented in rural areas. It is only a matter of time before women in rural western Kenya have a phone that can shoot and edit video and a strong enough cell phone connection to both download and upload video. Spice Chungu will run as if this technology future is already here and it will be the wind that drives our impacts up – and costs down - each year.
Mine is not just a journey about Video but about change. I will consistently demonstrate the concrete impact of my journey in the lives of people of western Kenya by women. This impact will be giving women a voice and ensure that they are heard, halt corruption, expose human rights violations, increase understanding between communities in conflict, improving infrastructure, providing information to people, develop local leaders, get people and government to take action, enable communities in western Kenya to advocate for themselves and give an income to women in the rural villages. This will instrumentally increase the scale, reach and impact of Spice Chungu.
For if not me then who? And if not now then when? I echo the words of Mahatma Gandhi that I have to be the change I want to see in the world.
I believe that the voice of each single woman today counts. Join me in spreading the spice and making it happen for the rural western Kenya.
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