Julia Quinn Instagram – DAY 2 of the Landesa Kenya Trip! 🇰🇪🇰🇪
We departed Nairobi bright and early for the 5 hour drive to Baringo County. Our journey took us across the equator, which, map-geek that I am, I had to celebrate with a ridiculous dance.
We drove straight to the home of Elizabeth Kabon Chepkochei, who, after THIRTY-FIVE visits to court, became the first woman in her community to hold a title deed to land in her own name.
Indigenous Kenyan society is quite patriarchal, and land is generally passed from father to son. If there is no son, the brothers of the man who has died usually claim the land, leaving the widow (and her unmarried daughters, if she has any) homeless. One of @landesaglobal’s goals in Kenya is to help women understand that the Kenyan Constitution guarantees them the right to own land and to support them when they seek to exercise this right.
Mama (as Elizabeth asked us to call her) told us her story, and introduced us to her husband and six of her eight children, including her daughter Dorcas, who just completed university with a degree in nursing.
To honor Mama’s trailblazing fight, Landesa gifted her with a dairy cow. (I’d been told it would be a goat, so I was quite surprised when I heard a MOO.)
We were all so moved (by Mama’s story, not by the cow), we got together to support Dorcas in her future educational pursuits—we have guaranteed to cover the cost of her two-year Masters of Nursing program! Go Dorcas!
More to come… | Posted on 09/Jan/2025 01:58:50
