Causecast

by Bruce Northam

“You don’t have to peer through keyholes when your hand rests on the doorknob.”

Giving birth to that truism, teenagers at a Kenyan Maasai girls’ boarding school reinvented its reality—and the power of a heartfelt speech.

HOPE Artists, a creative “voluntourism” guerilla task force from the U.S., began and ended their recent 40-day social development undertaking in Kenya and Rwanda with visits to the Kiseryan Girls Senior Academy, a Maasai boarding school for young women in the Ngong Hills beyond Nairobi. The school awards scholarships for impoverished Maasai girls aged 12 to 18 years—vital, as most others have no education options and are given into early, arranged marriage by age 14, or worse.

As artists committed to Helping Other People Everywhere (HOPE), the diverse team—which includes a Marine cum humanitarian, a Survivor producer/musician, a sensei/warrior artist, a writer (me), and HOPE’s founder/graphic artist—sprang into action with the creative team of the Young African Express—a potentially pan-African monthly educational teenage newspaper, published since 2005 by Jacaranda Designs—initiating a speech-writing competition for 200 Maasai girls. HOPE challenged them to feel,ponder,and express their personal views in a 250-word speech to their newly established coalition government leaders, President Mwai Kibaki and the new prime minister-designate, Hon. Raila Odinga. After introducing the pen as a tool of change, we dared the students to imagine themselves presenting petitions for their country’s peaceful and more productive future. I also reminded them that the leaders of Liberia, Argentina, India, Israel, Pakistan, and the Philippines are now or have been women.

Accustomed to working off the grid, the HOPE Artists team pulls into challenged regions, inspires as many young people as they can, and leaves blueprints that permanently empower communities in need. The entries for the speech-writing competition were reviewed by HOPE Artists and editors of Young African Express; the top three entrants were selected to read their speeches at a theatrical awards ceremony crowning the winners for their courage to speak out. The winner, Ann Muiruri, and two runners-up had their speeches published in the May issue of the Express and, so their voices would truly be heard, the articles and videotape of their speeches were delivered to the two leaders in Kenya’s parliament.

Reading the speeches sent shivers down my spine. They were handwritten, so firmly you could feel pen ridges on the backside of the paper—emotional Braille. I imagined each young woman pondering, penning, and feeling her power. With renewed post-election violence still a daily threat, and thousands of dislocated people still in IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps, the speeches really mattered. They included pleas to stop the senseless bloodshed and underlined the devastating effect the violence has on tourism, which had been Kenya’s enduring GDP jackpot.

Will the troubled hybrid government listen to these sage teenagers?

Andi Scull, HOPE’s creator, conceived of the March/April 2008 Africa project before Kenya erupted into savage post-election violence in December 2007, with youth center stage and women and children bearing the brunt. By 2010, 50 percent of the world’s population will be under 24 years of age—educating and inspiring them has never been more critical. Otherwise, a time bomb ticks.

The awards ceremony kicked off with song and dance performances by students and guest local artists. Next, Che Che, a men’s a cappella group, backed up HOPE Artist Peter Goetz singing his hit, “I Got Love.” Inside the simple cement shell of the school’s main hall we created a relevant, memorable showcase of making dreams come true. As the three finalists read their speeches to the entire school, their significance radiated. When Ann Muiruri finished presenting “Give Peace and Dialogue a Chance,” it became crystal clear that these kids want an opportunity for unity to prosper.

The combined force of the speeches stirred a proverbial pot of common sense that, for some reason, had been out of the reach of adults. I’ve always thought that our individual wisdom tends to loom a decade or so ahead of us—but these teenagers, Kenya’s future, are letting the world know otherwise.

Click here to read the rest of this article.