Julia Quinn Instagram – DAY 5 of the Landesa Kenya trip! 🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪
We met with paralegal Aggrey Majimbo (picture 7 and 10) who, along with @landesaglobal, trained six women from Kakamega County to be paralegals—now they are able to serve the people of their county to settle land disputes and aid with ordinary land transactions (saving people a lot of money from predatory middlemen.)
We also met Merceline Ilusa Likalaba, the first woman chief in her area! Chiefs report to the office of the president here in Kenya, and they are critically important to the communities they serve. Madame Chief is an absolute FORCE. She told us about the difficulties she had getting appointed to her job (misogyny ugh) and how she won everyone over with her no nonsense attitude and common sense. She has zero tolerance for domestic violence, and it has been reduced drastically during her tenure. The number of women obtaining title deeds to land has also gone up. When women lead, lives improve!!!
After lunch we visited a different part of the county (not in Merceline’s jurisdiction) and met Dimitila Azangala (picture 10), who nearly lost a portion of her land to a corrupt chief. When her husband died, the chief lent money to Dimitila for a new roof in exchange for use of a land tract for farming for a specified period. Two years later, however, he said he was going to take the land. Dimitila said no, that wasn’t the agreement, and said that she’d rather pay him back the money. He said no, he wanted the land (which was obviously worth more than what he’d lent her.)
With Landesa’s help, the matter was settled legally, and she paid him back. It wasn’t easy; she had to sell a cow and her son traveled to Nairobi for several months to work as a security guard. But she won her case and showed that women can’t be bullied by corrupt officials.
At the end of the day we traveled to Lake Victoria for a farewell dinner but the restaurant was OUT OF FISH. (How does that happen on the shores of Lake Victoria? Seriously, how?) So we went back to the hotel, and as you can see, I headed to the bar… | Posted on 12/Jan/2025 00:54:25
