When Pastor Dr. Dorcas Rigathi was in Canada, she gave this powerful speech at the Women’s International Day celebration organized by the Kenyan Canada Association.
Here is the integrality of her speech:
Let me take this chance just to say that I don’t need to talk too much because we have already seen it and I think everyone who is here. I want just to congratulate the women on this day.
One of the greatest things for a woman or a mother is just to be called a mother. And a mother is one who nurtures life, one who gives life. There is no greater symbol or a creature that is designed with beauty and power like a woman. You give a woman a seed, she gives you a child. You give a woman a house, she gives you a home. There is no better than a woman. And therefore, when I stand here, I celebrate myself as I celebrate you. There is no one time you will ever speak of a woman without talking about the entire world. And that’s why you would say that once you educate a woman, you educate the whole village. And I can tell you a woman can come from nowhere and when she emerges, she becomes the savior of the world.
It is only a woman who can feel the affliction of the vulnerable and stand up for them and sacrifice everything that she has. It is only a woman who can give up her life, her business, her everything to nurture a differently abled child and do everything and live everything. Only a woman. And therefore, today I am celebrating the greatest creature, fearfully and wonderfully made of God.
And when you look at them, they come in different shapes and different sizes. We are all different, but we are all beautiful and we are all fearfully made, powerful and able to withstand every challenge that is thrown our way and that is why today I came to celebrate the women of Canada.
Coming to my office, when we just came to office about six months ago, and I envisioned as a woman, as I have just told you, a dignified future for the vulnerable population. And I decided from all manner of jobs and businesses and everything that was there, I would take three pillars, four pillars of my office. And one of them is people living with disabilities because I believed in doing small things. I don’t like doing so big things. I like doing small things and they mean so much to me. And therefore, in my office I am saying we need to think of the people who are living with disabilities and see them as men and women and children that deserve our care.
The other ones are the vulnerable, that is the orphans and the widows, that is the next pillar. And the third pillar is the one which is already put here, that is the BOY CHILD. I say they should have access; equal opportunities and they should be provided resources. In Kenya we are having a great crisis as you have seen. Young men, people, children from a mother, from a father in the streets taking glue, taking, abusing alcohol, drugs and they are out there desirous that somebody would reach out and pull them out and save them from destruction. And therefore, as a mother, I am standing and saying if you want to have a good girl, if you want to advocate for a girl who is decent, who will be able to have a good home, you must be able to have an inclusive society that treats the boy equal to the way we treat our girls. As a mother, I went to the labour room and when I gave birth to a girl or a boy the pain was the same therefore, I believe the society need to start to think very seriously. When God created them, he created them both male and female. He blessed both and gave them dominion. And if you want a good enough just society, let both boys and girls grow together. If you want gender-based violence to end, all you need is to change the mindset of the boy child. And who is the one that shapes the boy-child mindset? It is the mother. And therefore, women have a responsibility. When we are bringing up our children, our boy children, what we need is to bring up not a killer machine, but we need to bring up a wholesome child. I believe in our cultures we are telling these young men that they don’t need to cry, they don’t need to go to the kitchen, they don’t need to do this, they don’t need to do that, they don’t show emotions, they only know what not to do. No one tells them or mentors them and tells them what to do. And therefore, that is why we have a society of men that do not respect and honour women. And therefore, we need just to change the mindset of our boy and you will see the world will be a better place to live. I appeal to all of us, that respect and honour, balanced families will only become a reality when we address the issues and the problems of the boy child. Those of us who live in Kenya know when those young men are on drugs because they are frustrated.
Let have a just society and let be inclusive because as a mother, I want a family. I want a husband, I want my boy child, I want my girl child and I want everyone to be included. And that is what you bring love and care in a family. And I’m looking at all of us and I’m asking myself, Yes, we need to rethink it and we need to teach our children to grow together. We need to teach love and once they know how to love, you will have lovely families.
I want to really thank all of you and as you have heard, I have that crisis that is in Kenya and I don’t think it is only in Kenya, I think it is across Africa and even across the world. Maybe it is the degree of the crisis and the challenges, the way we are facing. Maybe the drug addiction and the way it is projecting itself here. If you take our people, somebody from here, you take them there, they will think they are in heaven. But just translate those boys to the boys up there and know that every one of us needs to be mentally healthy. We need to think of how we can be able also to help those in Africa.
In my country, what we are trying to do is to build a rehab center for those boys. A rehab center that has vocational training so that we can train them with their trade skills and entrepreneurial skills and we can give them tools so that they can be able to stand up and have income-generating activities. The other thing is to have a supportive community so that we can integrate them into the communities around and also give them a future, a hope, reactivate their dream, and bring back the dream and the hope that is dead. And that is the work that I am doing.
With the women, I am trying to reintegrate these women whom people have pitied and looked at them and they think that they are nothing. They ostracize them, they reject them. The women are the widows. These widows, you just need your husband to die and I can tell you, within a few months, you will see the same people who used to go with you, they no longer want to come with you. If you are a young lady and your husband dies, and it’s unfortunate that most of these things, they don’t happen by design. You lose your husband from an accident, from illness, you don’t orchestrate it, you don’t plan it, you don’t design it. But the moment your husband leaves, my friend, even those ones who you used to go with, you will find they don’t want you in their company because one, they think you are going to take their husband. If you are old, they think you are going to be a baggage. And those are the kind of women that we are having and we want to make them have a dignified life where they can live with themselves, live with the community and become people who can contribute even to the revenues of a nation because the very fact that you lost your husband, it did not make you disabled. It did not make you a woman that is not able to work. What we need is to love them, support them and make sure that whatever challenges and injustices that are met on these women, they are removed.
And as we celebrate this Women’s Day, I hope you are thinking about those widows and their orphans because if you are not doing that, then actually we are not living our purpose. Every human being ought to think about another human being that is unfortunate. It could have been you who lost the husband. It could have been you who is in those streets. It could have been your child who is that, who is taking glue.
And I can tell you some of us know that drug addiction is not only for the poor. It is not for the informal settlement and the ghetto. I know it is also with the rich. It does not choose a colour. It does not choose greed. And therefore, we must stand up and say no to these addictions that are destroying and killing communities.
And so, I really want to thank you. I don’t want to keep you. I know we have been here for a long time. And I’m sure you are hungry and you want to eat. I’m also ready for dinner because you invited me for the dinner. And therefore, as you think of how you can partner with us in a rehabilitation program or empowerment of the women and those boys, just think about where can you pitch in.
We have a football tournament that is coming in Nairobi. And we have 680 teams which we have formed. Eight teams from every ward. And we want them to stagger in those fields. And we want them to feel good about themselves. And when they are through with it, we would have loved on them. The clergy will be there to love on them. The medics will be there. And the people from the Ministry of Education will be there. For those who need to go back to school, we will sponsor them back to school. Those ones who want to continue and do sports, we will be with them. And for those who are heavily addicted, we are going to sponsor them to rehab centers so that we can have a just and fair society. And we can give back life and a second chance to those boys.
God bless you and God honour you as you continue to think how you partner with us. I can see people waving at me. God bless you. God bless you. God honors you. And I believe that you are sending me back with some greetings to the Kenyans. Asante sana. Nita wasalimiya wote. And also when you go back, please pass my regards to your families. Tell them we love them and I think I love Canada. I’ll come back.
And to my friend Samir, you know you need to come home now. I know you are my friend and things are going to work. Bring all these honourable to be able to invest in Kenya. Kenya is a beautiful country for investment. We want to change it to a way when you come there, you’ll not even recognize it. In the next five years, just watch Kenya. That is a place to come and invest. Even you now start investing in your country and I love Canada. I’ll also come and invest here. God bless you.
By William Muyuku at AfriCanadaTv
