It was a childhood dream to help and be there for women facing domestic and sexual violence. I grew up in a big extended family where we have 12 nuclear families living in the same big building. As a child I witness sever maltreatment of women as my uncles many times would beat their wives and give them bruises all over their bodies. The sad thing was that at the end, these women would still be asked by the elders to apologize to their husbands to forgive them. I was always depressed whenever this happened but I dare not talk or condemn this act because if I did so, my mother and I would be sent to the street, never to return to the house.

When I was growing up my uncle keep telling my father not to send me to school and said that he should send me to go and learn a trade because as a woman, I will soon end up in the kitchen of a man. I was so lucky that my father refused to listen to the advice of his brother. He was always telling his brother that he had boys and my father had only girls. If he did not send his own girls to school, then it would be my uncle’s own boys that would have to care for my father when he was old. This is the kind of environment I grew up in, an environment with zero respect for women and baby girls.

It had always been my dream that one day, I would grow up and I would be able to speak against violence against women in my community. This dream remained a dream until 2009 when I signed up with World Pulse Voice of our Future Correspondence and I became the award winner to attend the Empowerment Institute. Since then my voice has risen up and has never been silent since. In fact, my voice continues to be louder and louder and even more powerful, to the point where no one can silence it again.

I am also now living my dream of many years to be a voice for the oppressed. This is a great wealth for me. How do I quantify in terms of money, the joy of about 4000 women and girls that I have helped to find their voices and to live their dreams? The radiant faces that greet me whenever I visit the communities that I have worked in, to see the women that have gone through the empowerment workshops and awareness campaigns on violence against women is amazing. I feel like a queen with billions of dollars in her account. The joy of these women and girls keep radiating in my life and I feel that I have not come into this world in vain.

Thank you to my sister Jensine, the dreamer that brought my own dream to a reality. One click! My voice came out powerfully, one click! I become a voice to be reckoned with in the society, one click, my dream was fulfilled!! Thank you!