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 May 2009.

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.