My Story

My life was set to follow the traditional path of all girls born in the small Maasai village of Enoosaen, Kenya where I grew up. Engaged at the age of 5, I was to be circumcised by the time I became a teenager—an event that would mark the end of my education and the beginning of my preparations for marriage.

But I had a different plan. First, I negotiated with my father: I would willingly agree to be circumcised only if he would allow me to finish high school. He agreed. Then I negotiated with the village elders to do what no girl had ever done before: leave my village in south Kenya to go to college in the United States. I promised that I would use my education to benefit Enoosaen and the entire village collected money to pay for my journey.

I received a scholarship to Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Virginia. Once the girl who grew up without electricity, I became the student who wrote papers on international relations and political science on the computers at the university library. Currently attending the University of Pittsburgh, I expect to receive a doctorate in education in 2010.

Throughout my time in the United States, I have engaged in efforts to promote awareness of the issues affecting girls in my community. As the first youth advisor to the United Nations Population Fund, I have traveled around the world to speak on the importance of educating girls, particularly as a means to fight the practices of female genital mutilation and child marriage.

Today, I am working to fulfill the promise I made years ago: to return to my village and give back. Since 2006, I have been working to build a girls' school in Enoosaen so that other young African girls might travel the same path I did- to education, self-realization and leadership. This is my dream.

Watch The Gift of an Unwritten Future

In this interview, Kakenya Ntaiya talks about the freedom she has found in education.

This interview was conducted by Kate Cummings - Advocacy Project Peace Fellow and Vital Voices Field Correspondent in Kenya. August, 2009.