Umoja Founder Visits Brooklyn
To praise Rebecca Lolosoli of Samburu, Kenya, for creating a village for abused women, the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus wrote a song for her.
During Lolosoli’s recent visit to the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, they sang it for her.
By Emily Keller
Comment
To praise Rebecca Lolosoli of Samburu, Kenya, for creating a village for abused women, the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus wrote a song for her.
During Lolosoli’s recent visit to the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, they sang it for her.
They also recorded the song, “Where Women Rule,” onto a CD, the proceeds of which will benefit the village.
Lolosoli, who founded Umoja ten years ago as a refuge for women who were raped by British soldiers and rejected by their families, responded with praise and tears and said she had never been so touched.
Then she told her courageous story of maintaining the women-run village – despite repeated threats and beatings from her male family members – to fight traditions of female circumcision and arranged marriages and to create new ones: those of sexual freedom, education and empowerment.
Speaking to a group of about 50 women and a few men inside the 53 Prospect Park West building, Lolosoli spoke about her personal struggle and the importance of women’s rights, saying, “The woman is the mother of everybody, so when the woman is poor the whole world is poor.”
Thanks to Lolosoli’s efforts and help from the international women’s rights organization MADRE, the women of Umoja are lifting themselves out of the poverty of human rights that once characterized their lives in Samburu.
“They don’t control us now,” Lolosoli said about the men of Samburu. “They just bring problems, but the problems are going down. It is getting better.”
When men come to the village to cause trouble, Lolosoli said, “If you [the men] have a problem you must go. This is the land of the woman. The woman will never go out.”
Education has been a primary force in improving the villagers’ lives. The 50 women who run the village created a primary school already, and are planning to build a secondary school with assistance from MADRE, which also helped them to obtain livestock and goats.
Lolosoli, who did not attend primary school, encourages children in the village to go to school because she associates education with liberation. “We have these problems because we are not educated,” she said. “We better put education first.”
Lolosoli said boys who are raised in the village choose to stay there because they want to be educated, and because they have seen their mothers suffer and are raised to break the traditions that caused that suffering.
In addition to helping the villagers obtain food and resources, MADRE also talks to them about their rights as women.
“When MADRE started telling us about our rights it was like we were just waiting for someone to tell us,” Lolosoli said. “Women started learning their rights because no one had ever told them about their rights.”
The villagers are now aware of their right to buy land, and they have bought 10,000 square kilometers of it.
MADRE, which has sent more than $22 million to community-based women’s organizations since it began in 1983, visits Umoja twice a year.
For the second year in a row, Executive Director Vivian Stromberg traveled around the U.S. with Lolosoli on a two-week tour that ended in Park Slope.
In the course of their travels, Stromberg said the two women – who met at an international conference in South Africa in 2001 – have become good friends. “We hope a force to be reckoned with,” she added.
The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture is collecting school supplies to send to Umoja by the end of the year. To make a donation, call (718) 768-2972. To purchase a CD of the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus visit http://www.brooklynwomenschorus.com
During Lolosoli’s recent visit to the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, they sang it for her.
They also recorded the song, “Where Women Rule,” onto a CD, the proceeds of which will benefit the village.
Lolosoli, who founded Umoja ten years ago as a refuge for women who were raped by British soldiers and rejected by their families, responded with praise and tears and said she had never been so touched.
Then she told her courageous story of maintaining the women-run village – despite repeated threats and beatings from her male family members – to fight traditions of female circumcision and arranged marriages and to create new ones: those of sexual freedom, education and empowerment.
Speaking to a group of about 50 women and a few men inside the 53 Prospect Park West building, Lolosoli spoke about her personal struggle and the importance of women’s rights, saying, “The woman is the mother of everybody, so when the woman is poor the whole world is poor.”
Thanks to Lolosoli’s efforts and help from the international women’s rights organization MADRE, the women of Umoja are lifting themselves out of the poverty of human rights that once characterized their lives in Samburu.
“They don’t control us now,” Lolosoli said about the men of Samburu. “They just bring problems, but the problems are going down. It is getting better.”
When men come to the village to cause trouble, Lolosoli said, “If you [the men] have a problem you must go. This is the land of the woman. The woman will never go out.”
Education has been a primary force in improving the villagers’ lives. The 50 women who run the village created a primary school already, and are planning to build a secondary school with assistance from MADRE, which also helped them to obtain livestock and goats.
Lolosoli, who did not attend primary school, encourages children in the village to go to school because she associates education with liberation. “We have these problems because we are not educated,” she said. “We better put education first.”
Lolosoli said boys who are raised in the village choose to stay there because they want to be educated, and because they have seen their mothers suffer and are raised to break the traditions that caused that suffering.
In addition to helping the villagers obtain food and resources, MADRE also talks to them about their rights as women.
“When MADRE started telling us about our rights it was like we were just waiting for someone to tell us,” Lolosoli said. “Women started learning their rights because no one had ever told them about their rights.”
The villagers are now aware of their right to buy land, and they have bought 10,000 square kilometers of it.
MADRE, which has sent more than $22 million to community-based women’s organizations since it began in 1983, visits Umoja twice a year.
For the second year in a row, Executive Director Vivian Stromberg traveled around the U.S. with Lolosoli on a two-week tour that ended in Park Slope.
In the course of their travels, Stromberg said the two women – who met at an international conference in South Africa in 2001 – have become good friends. “We hope a force to be reckoned with,” she added.
The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture is collecting school supplies to send to Umoja by the end of the year. To make a donation, call (718) 768-2972. To purchase a CD of the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus visit http://www.brooklynwomenschorus.com
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