Access, empowerment, girls’ education in Kenya

Rebecca Crook & Debborah Odenyi Transcript

Sabrina Merage Naim
From Evoke Media, I'm Sabrina Merage Naim, with me is Kassia Binkowski, and this is Breaking Glass - a series of conversations with women around the world who are shattering glass ceilings and challenging social norms. They are audacious, gutsy, and their stories are echoed across borders and generations in a rallying cry that is changing the narrative for women everywhere. We're headed back to Kenya today where we're speaking with Rebecca Crook and Deborah ODenyi. Rebecca grew up in California, Deborah grew up in rural Kenya. And yet we're talking to them both in Nairobi, where they found their respective paths to working in education. Rebecca is the co-founder of Metis Collective, an organization that identifies and mobilizes local leaders to transform the education system in Kenya. Deborah is a former teacher and administrator, who is currently working as an education consultant for Girl Rising, an international organization harnessing the power of storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education. Today, these women are educating us on the barriers girls face, the systems that need to change, and the impact that it can have on society at large when more girls are educated.

Kassia Binkowski
Sabrina, this is a topic that really fires me up. Coming from a background in global health, I remember learning years ago about just how transformational access to education can be for girls. More than 130 million girls around the world are still not in school, the need is truly tremendous. And when these girls have access to education, it changes everything. Literacy levels, health outcomes, child survival, when they marry, how much they earn, how healthy their kids are, the list goes on and on. Rebecca and Deborah have an intimate understanding of what this work looks like on the ground in Kenya. And they're sharing their own personal stories about why education is so important to them. Take a listen.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Deborah and Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us today. This is a bit of an unusual setup for us because we have never had two guests join us simultaneously. But your your work is so synergistic, you guys have a lot of shared experiences, and we felt like it would be really interesting to have two different perspectives on the issue of girls' education as a mechanism for gender equity. So first things first, we'd love to hear a little bit from each of you about your story how you ended up in education. So Rebecca, why don't you go first, and then we'll hear from Deborah.

Rebecca Crook
I started my journey in education as a bilingual kindergarten teacher in my home state of California. And those five year olds and their families completely changed my life. I think I learned just as much, if not more, those years teaching in Richmond, California. But always really thought, no offense to our American listeners there, but for me, the United States just seemed like really an impoverished place to live. So I was really keen to learn and work alongside others, outside of the United States, and so supported a network of private schools in South Africa and lived there for a few years, and made my way to Nairobi in 2016. Supporting school leaders, and now a broad community of education changemakers.

Kassia Binkowski
And Deborah, what about you?

Debborah Odenyi
Thank you so much, Kassia, Sabrina, too, for having us here today. I started my journey of education, way back, inspired by my mom who was also a teacher. I liked the way she worked in school, I happened to go to the same primary school where my mom taught. And so I loved the way she worked and always told myself, I would be a teacher one day, and so happened and I've taught in school systems for 25 years. And at the end of 2017, I decided I would love to work with girls more because I felt the need to serve more girls because I've worked with institutions, providing education for girls and so I thought I'd get out of the confines of school and work more with girls and communities or women as well in promoting the education of girls and I became an independent consultant on education matters, supporting organizations that work with girls in empowering them with an education and life skills. Supporting them to achieve their dreams in life. So that's what I'm doing now, finding platforms with organizations that support education of girls.

Kassia Binkowski
So you grew up in two completely different corners of the world. And yet, you obviously share a really deep passion for education and access to education. In what ways is this work personal for you? In what ways has your own access to education kind of shaped where you are today?

Debborah Odenyi
What passionately drives me to do this is, I'm a single mother of a daughter and I have raised her up single-handedly. And this thought that she has succeeded and been able to complete college and start to work in the corporate world successfully, keeps reminding me how many other girls out there do not have access to education because of one reason or another.

Sabrina Merage Naim
I think that just shows that it's such a multi-generational issue where you were able to gain the influence from your mother, and now you are influencing your daughter. And because you're seeing how that strong lineage of women in a family can impact from one generation to another so significantly, there are other girls in the community who are now gaining the benefit of your passion, and your knowledge and experience for knowing and understanding the impact of education for girls, particularly in impoverished areas. Girls who otherwise would not have the same access. So I think that's incredible. Rebecca, what about you?

Rebecca Crook
In my case, I also come from a family of educators, both my grandmother and my grandfather were teachers. And my grandfather, in particular really shaped me from a young age, we would play cards together for hours at the dining room table. And our favorite thing to do while playing cards was, was to tell stories. So I listened to my grandfather tell all sorts of stories. And I remember him telling me, "Rebecca, when I was your age, I had to pack my life into bags we could carry". And he didn't get to finish high school because the American government interned a hundred thousand Japanese Americans. Rounded them up and put them in imprisonment camps, essentially. And so I learned from a young age that systems work for some people, but they don't work for all people. And I knew that I wanted to do something that could help shift those systems in some way. I think for my grandfather, and for many others in my family education has really enabled people to have the skills and knowledge that they need to thrive.

Sabrina Merage Naim
It's clear that it's so deeply personal for both of you. Rebecca, when did your paths cross? When did you and Deborah meet?

Rebecca Crook
Debbie, you'll have to fact check me on this but I think it was 2017, and she was the headmistress at an amazing network of schools, called Shining Hope for Communities and or SHOFCO. I got to visit the school, got to meet Debbie, and learned of her work, and at the time, my co founder and I were piloting, essentially an accelerator for education, innovators. So I got to meet Debbie then and then watch and support her, kind of launch into this independent powerhouse and many other education organizations.

Kassia Binkowski
Deborah, tell us a little bit about Kenya specifically, what is the education system look like there? What is the situation both in Nairobi and then in more rural communities? Kind of paint a picture for our listeners, if you will.

Debborah Odenyi
So the education system in Kenya, I would say, goes with the economic ability of parents. So the affluent have schools that are expensive, high end schools where the education system is also different. So they can access international curriculum. They also have access because of their financial muscle to schools with a national curriculum that are quite expensive. But you find that within the same cities, for instance, like Nairobi, in informal settlements, they are low cost schools, where the students or learners in the slums go. But they are given the same assessment at the end of whatever level, they'll be, either primary level or high school level, regardless of the school they've gone to. And every county has its own set of schools. And so here, we also have private, some high end, and some public schools, and the private schools would offer better education because they've got better facilities. Enrollment would also be according to the facilities available for each student in the school. But for public schools, you'll find 100 children in us in a classroom for one teacher.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Yeah, and I think that you're just speaking back to Rebecca's point that there are systems that work for some and not all. And that wealth disparity is so clear in the school system in Kenya, and, frankly, that there's a wealth disparity that exists in the US and in every country that shows up in education, but having 100 kids in a class for one teacher is quite extreme. So granted, every community and culture is different, but you guys are both working for organizations that have global reach. We have to ask the question, Rebecca, what are the primary barriers to education for girls globally?

Rebecca Crook
I mean, I would just say, number one, misogyny is kind of the water we all swim in. So I think there are systems that devalue females' intelligence, opportunities, and create barriers to opportunity beyond education. So I would say that's one globally. In here locally in Kenya, labor. There's a study here in Kenya that shows that women, on average, provide over 11 hours of care work, whether that's cooking or cleaning or caring for youth, and men, on average, provide about two hours. So you can imagine that starts from a young age. Oftentimes we'll see that girls are required to help out around the house in certain ways that boys aren't. And so that labor that starts from a young age can create time pressures that aren't there for boys and can be prohibitive for girls. Going back to the wealth issues, because even free schools are not free in many places, here in Kenya even government schools, you pay for textbooks, you pay for uniforms, and so with it when a family has limited resources, if boys are generally more valued and it is seen that their contributions to the workplace will be more beneficial than girls' eventual contributions, then with limited resources, they often keep their boys in school and keep their girls at home. So there's definitely a socio-economic lens to this is well. I would also add that violence against women is certainly a trend, I myself am a survivor, and that happened when I was in high school. I didn't want to be at school, school is not a place where I could be safe and bring my whole self. And I think, all around the world that violence impacts girls. Here in Kenya 33% of girls experience some sort of sexual assault before the age of 18. So that is certainly I think, a factor as well.

Sabrina Merage Naim
What are both of you doing to try and change that reality in Kenya? Deborah, I'd love to hear from you.

Debborah Odenyi
Education is a right, and no girl in any community should be denied such an opportunity. So ensuring all girls of school-going age wherever they are, they are enrolled to a school too attain an education. And advocacy for ending of harmful practices, the gender based violence against girls and against women, awful practices like child labor. Like Rebecca says 11 hours just doesn't work for women, even girls, they take care of the elderly take care of the sick in the community. We would go round with Rebecca and Tim from Metis to distribute a home learning guide, and you find girls on home chores, while boys have, maybe a radio, and they're listening to lessons, which is very unfair. And so ensuring girls are protected against violence, against child labor, against practices like female genital mutilation, and the marriages, just ensuring girls are protected from any kind of harmful practice. And also, the economic inequalities in communities, in informal settlements, push girls to very compromising situations like getting into early sexual relationships, maybe because they would just like to access, for instance, menstrual hygiene supplies. Dignity is a human right and no girl should miss school, no girls should transect her body to get sanitary towels, or even have to work in order to buy a packet of sanitary towels. And so ensuring all that is taken care of is part of what we actually do within communities with women. Empowering them to be able to give such necessities or needs or supplies to their daughters. And also just let them know, girls are equally supposed to attend school, like their peer brothers.

Sabrina Merage Naim
I have to interject here because everything you're saying is like "hallelujah". And so important.

Kassia Binkowski
Yeah. And everything you're saying is something that we've talked about and touched on. We've had a guest talk about every single one of these issues. We're literally hanging up in an hour and having a conversation about period poverty. We launched this morning an episode about female genital mutilation. And what you guys are describing is that education stands at the center of all of this.

Sabrina Merage Naim
To Kassia's point, we've spoken with so many women who had to leave their country of birth to have the physical distance to recognize that the system they grew up in was broken. You know, so many of the women on our show who who spoke about trauma or hardships, or perseverance from challenging cultural, societal or gender norms in the country of their birth. They had to leave that reality to finally be able to say, "Oh, this was not okay", and then many of them came back to try and change it. But Deborah, you are Kenyan born, you are working in Kenya still, you so clearly see the injustices and the inequity. Where did that come from? Where did that stem from? Was it from your mother? Was it from somewhere else? I just want to understand where that fire in your belly came from.

Debborah Odenyi
So let us say not everyone is economically endowed. Resources are limited, and so what what can I do within the space that I have? Not everyone is able to leave their country of birth and go to get an opportunity elsewhere. So we are not going to move away from our problems. And Rebecca always tells us there is no Superman. It is just us, it is just us and so I would like to make my community better. Where we are, as we are, within familiar grounds. Just leave it better than I found it. And I feel the influence of the community around me will be better than fishing out one or two girls to get that opportunity elsewhere. When locally we could influence the environment, influence everyone around us, influence government, influence anyone in position to assist more girls, more women to get better opportunities and be treated better than it is.

Kassia Binkowski
Rebecca, what about you? I mean, you were educated in the states you worked in South Africa. You currently have touched on been influenced by, learning from, education innovators all over the world. What was it about Kenya that got under your skin? Why did you decide to put down roots there and work in this system?

Rebecca Crook
Because of people like Debbie. Kenya is full of so many Debbies, I think right now Kenya is such a hotspot for innovation of all kinds. And so that's why programs that Debbie runs like Girl Rising are so essential because they create a sanctuary within a classroom, maybe a critical distance from what could be happening at home, or with your neighbors next door, a chance to say, "do I really think that girls and boys should get different opportunities? Do I really think that? What do I really think is right?" And to be able to critically engage with challenges as they are and get the skills to really change things. And so I think that actually, schools and after school programs, and all these sorts of things could be a little lighthouses of possibility.

Sabrina Merage Naim
I'm curious now hearing from both of you, we hear the inequity, we hear the need, we understand how critical it is. Tell us a little bit about the impact that you're seeing on the ground.

Debborah Odenyi
There is impact I would say, and I was touched by the government close to when they started 100% transition from primary school to high school. So like Rebecca said, that education is not free as such in primary school, where that is the conception of learning. But when they get to high school, they actually make payment of fees of thousands of shillings, Kenyan shillings. And so the government wrote up a policy all those who've taken the standard eight exam should transition to high school, and that was followed to the letter until COVID happened. And so for me, that was one step of impact that I can confess of from the government side, because then in a family, if a girl and a boy both wrote the transition exam to high school, it would be preferred that the boy proceeds to high school and not the girl, especially in areas with economic inequalities, where parents are not able to support both for high school education. In communities that I work with, I have seen boys advocate, who are brothers to the sisters, advocate and even protect their own. And women are now enlightening one another, and they're coming together to form chamas, economic empowering groups, so that they are able to have an income of their own, especially in informal settlements, and in the villages where most of the women do not have employment and such. And so we also see girls who are determined girls who have developed resilience, gals who have self agency. They have dreams, and they're working towards their dreams, and they speak in confidence about them. And I encourage them always, hold a sister's hand, don't go alone. And so, few stories that we get to hear in communities, I would say, those are some of the indicators of impact that I can see with my own eyes and feel as I walk across communities

Rebecca Crook
To just ping off of Debbie's stories of help. I was sitting in the back of a classroom in Kibera one day watching a lesson unfold. And there was a very heated debate among 15 year olds around dress, and whether how someone dresses is inviting a certain type of behavior. And the young leader who was leading this discussion said, "okay, raise your hand if a girl wears this short skirt, she's asking for it". Every single hand went up, except, girls included, except one boy in the back. And he was sitting next to me. So I kind of turned to him. You could tell he's kind of like the cool kid. All eyes were then on him. He was going to be an influencer with what he said. And he said, "you know what, actually, if a skirt makes a girl feel comfortable, she should wear the skirt. If she feels happy in it, then she should wear it. It doesn't mean anything else except that she is happier. She is confident. You don't get to do anything". And so there was then this beautiful dialogue led by the students that unfolded and you could see perspectives shift over the course of that. Such that when the young leader asked the students the same question again, at the end of the discussion, not a single hand was raised.

Kassia Binkowski
I want to start to break down these impacts of education. Because the things that you're talking about are incredibly significant, but also a little bit harder to quantify. Feel a little bit less tangible. And there's so much research and so much evidence done around the impact that access to education can have for girls, but also for their families and for entire communities. We know that it affects everything from child survival, to higher wages, faster income growth, access to education for girls reduces premarital sex, it delays first births. These are all research backed findings. We know that these are true. And yet, potentially one of the most powerful impacts of education for girls that you guys are talking about, and touching on now that I want to pick apart, is this sense of empowerment. Is this sense of distance, is this sense of kind of the safe space it gives a girl to question who she's been told she's supposed to be. In Melinda Gates' book, Moment of Lift, she says that the secret of an empowering education is that a girl learns she is not who she is told to be. She's the equal of anyone, she has rights, and she has needs, and she can assert and defend those things. I think that's this intangible but really transformative impact that education has in girls. Walk us through why this piece, this sense of empowerment, might actually be the key to culture change, and to systems change in this space.

Rebecca Crook
Yes, absolutely. That reminds me of a beautiful story. I have a student I met in India called Arjuna. And when Arjuna was 13 years old, she realized that in her school, many of her girlfriends were dropping out. And it made her really sad. And so she believes in herself, she's not waiting on anyone else. So she and a couple other girls decided that they would go to their friends, families, and try to convince their parents to let their girls come back to school. You know, many of those girls were being introduced to suitors and they were on track to an early child marriage. And by going persistently, day after day, month after month, talking to their parents, our genetic convinced four of those five families to let their girls go back to class. And, you know, this is something that teachers had tried and failed at and school principals. And, you know, community chiefs had tried and failed to do and it was, it was a young girl, that was a student it was it was a young empowered girl who, who was able to do this. And you know, I think that's the power of an education. A great education is one that connects you can connect you to your sense of purpose, and passion, a sense of knowing that I am capable, and not only am I going to be a leader in the future, but I'm going to be a leader now.

Debborah Odenyi
To add to what Rebecca is saying, education is transformative. It actually enlightens a girl to know her potential to be able to know when and how to make decisions that are going to help her to be critical, develop a critical mind to question, to ask why, and be able to network and collaborate as she meets different people. Exposure that can only happen in education when she goes to school. That's where she'll meet teachers, she'll meet mentors, she'll meet support systems that will actually assist her into transforming her life and getting to know what is needed for her to be able to achieve whatever it is that she would like to achieve in life.

Kassia Binkowski
Deborah, are there moments for you that you can think back on? You grew up in rural Kenya, I'm going to make the assumption that there are many girls in your community who haven't had the opportunities that you have, who didn't make it as far as to be a consultant for international organizations and send their own daughters to university. When were there moments for you when you had that sense of empowerment, when you were able to look critically back on the community where you came from, and the system around you and see the nuances and see the things that needed fixing?

Debborah Odenyi
I saw this right from when I was growing up. In my family, there was no time, no year, that we lived without a family member who came from a needy background, and they were always brought in by my mom, always. So we had a girl growing up in our community, my mom did not discriminate, she did it for both boys and girls. And so for me, that was a moment I would look back on and when they would go back to their family, the way they spoke, the way they did their things was quite different. And today, that's the standard of life they live in, it's so different. Looking back at that, like I said I went to a school where my mom was teaching and it was a public school. Out of my class, there are very few women like me, who I can sit at the same table and compare notes with. So I really cherish and thank my mom and my dad for the opportunity to be able to achieve what I achieved. The possibility of empowering girls and women.

Sabrina Merage Naim
So just to share the numbers a little bit, there are more than 130 million girls around the world who are still not in school, and in low income countries for every 100 boys who continue education after university only 55 girls do. Societies that oppress women know that taking away education is the most powerful tool for oppression. That's something that we saw in a recent conversation we had with Dr. Agnes Managua, who is responsible for essentially helping to rebuild Rwanda after the genocide, said that she realized education was on the agenda that the less the population was educated, the more they could plan something like a genocide. It was a part of the administration's plan to continue to oppress the population. What are the early steps that can be taken to build gender equity in schools in these societies, when centuries of culture are stacked against you, what works?

Debborah Odenyi
What would work is ensuring that all children have an access to meaningful education, and they get the necessary support to keep them in school, and not just keep them there, they should be able to thrive. Because even while at school, they still have challenges that they meet. Some may look at them as being very simple, like having a simple meal at breakfast. Having a simple meal is not possible for many families, especially in communities that I work in. And so access to education, that would bring that. And also working with schools, mainstreaming gender issues into the curriculum of schools and building an education around life skills for them would be very, very meaningful, it would also just empower them and know exactly what they would like to do with their lives and even solve problems within their own communities. To make communities where they come from change their mindsets about education and the importance of having children in school.

Kassia Binkowski
Rebecca, any thoughts on your end? I'm curious to hear how to tackle this. As you're working with education innovators, what is working? What are the little ways to start to chip away at this? When the change that needs to be created is just so big?

Rebecca Crook
I think there are opportunities at every level of the system to make change. And in fact, we all must play a role if we want to ensure that girls have the opportunity to learn and thrive. So whether we're policymakers like David Sengeh, the Minister of Education in Sierra Leone, who ended the 10 year ban on visibly pregnant girls and teenage mothers, or entrepreneurs like my friend who's ensuring all kids have nutritious meals, and families don't have to choose between sending their kids to work or to school. You know, research backs these sorts of policies and solutions. And yet, it's also important to consider context, there's not one set of solutions. I think we can airlift from one country to another what might work in Kibera here in Nairobi might not work in, you know, across town, and what works in Iran might not work in Australia. So my belief is that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution. And that these challenges when it comes to gender are deeply rooted in social, political, cultural realities of each community. And so I think really supporting and devolving power and equipping leaders that are at the community level is an important way that we're going to, to solve these disparities. And you know, my belief is that when we connect those leaders, and we can help accelerate the transfer of what works, and that we can see and spread positive deviance that can be adopted by others.

Kassia Binkowski
The positive deviance that you're talking about, I think, is really interesting. I mean, we've spoken with so many extraordinary women on the show, all of whom can trace their stories back to parents who decided that they should invest in their daughter's education. Women who grew up in Hungary and Iran and Pakistan, and they all point to their parents deciding to keep their daughters in school, despite the fact that that wasn't the norm, despite the fact that the people around them weren't making that same choice. And then these women have had enormous success and by different measures, of course, but you can see the ripple that started from making the choice to do something different. There's so much evidence that points to that impact

Rebecca Crook
And behavior often shifts when we see something modeled to us. We're such social creatures. And so if there's a caregiver who goes against the grain and says, My daughter is going to stay in school, I think there's a huge opportunity to support that caregiver, to leverage them as a leader, to nudge others within their sphere of influence, we know that it will have a ripple effect.

Sabrina Merage Naim
It's easy to say that access to education for girls is important. It's not as easy when you bring in the realities of some of the challenges and difficulties that these families face. Because what we're talking about is that preventing that education for one girl could impact that child's future, and multiple generations of her family.

Rebecca Crook
It's really easy to demonize those who prevent girls going to school. And yet, I have never met a parent who didn't want the best for their child. So then the challenge and opportunity becomes deeply listening to families’ dreams for their children. And then connecting those dreams to pathways for their achievement. And we know girls’ education is a potent pathway. So for me, it comes down to deeply listening, and then clearly, helping people understand their why. Because when we know why we're doing something, why we're making a sacrifice, or why we have to overcome a challenge that can open us up to lots of creativity in our collective problem solving.

Debborah Odenyi
I remember in one parent's meeting, which I found quite intriguing, a father to one of the daughters asked, "you keep telling us to ensure girls come to school, and that they love school, and when they're at home, we also encourage them to be in school, to love school, to love what they are doing in school. Why do you keep telling us that?" And I told him, a girl who is educated will delay getting married, number one. Number two, women are known to plow more of their income back into the families and so if this girl gets an education and gets a good job or maybe employment, or she finally is able to generate resources for herself, she will be able to generate almost 90% of her resources back to the family. And also, they will be aware of the health situations and so such a girl will not easily contract diseases like HIV, and she will have delayed childbearing and she'll bear children who are very healthy, children who will be well supported, taken to school. And so just giving them some of those reasons, I mean, just letting them know because they may not really understand. Some of them are illiterate, they never had the opportunity to go to school, and then knowing that in the world dynamic, things have changed. Letting them know, at their level is really important.

Rebecca Crook
We have to begin with listening and really honoring what folks care about. And then we can begin to build bridges between that which we care and dream for, and a central component to our collective well being, which is girls’ education.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Breaking Glass is a production of Evoke Media. Evoke is a nonprofit organization that exists in order to elevate that people and stories that are working to make the world a more unified and equitable place. Learn more at weareevokemedia.com