HUMANISM
I am from Kenya, born and lived here all my life. Hardly ever had the opportunity to travel out of my own country and explore other countries, get exposure, experience different cultures. As far as my life is concerned being part of UNLEASH is a very big deal in my life, traveling to Copenhagen even a bigger deal. My English name is Silvia and family name is Muturi my preferred name is Njeri but hardly anyone gets to enunciate it correctly. It is butchered and massacred and tortured so Silvia will do just fine. I am a single Mum, although that was not the plan, but life happens not according to plan most of the time, it hardly does. My son is eight years old and thinks I am tough and strong and beautiful and superwoman.
How my son views me, is hardly how I see myself. Hardly. My passion is working with the Deaf community in Kenya. I do appreciate that my environment (the disability environment) is extremely complex. In addition to navigating through the challenges to bring change to the Deaf community, I have to balance being first and foremost a Mother, daughter, sister and friend in that order respectively. I heard somewhere at an entrepreneurship event that the eco system here does not support women especially those in social entrepreneurship; as they have all these balancing acts and men can tough it out for 2–3 years and their startups succeed. Yes, I am a statistic in this. Wherever it was done just sign me up. My opinion is that the Kenyan eco system is not functioning effectively. So where my son sees me as superwoman; in this environment I feel lost, alone and exhausted.
Out of my own violation, I decided to learn Kenyan sign language and integrated myself in the Deaf community, hardly after completing my high school. I had just been declared legal to drink and drive under our Kenyan laws. Now I am in my early thirties, having gone through various seasons of my life, went to college, learned how to drive, got different jobs, got married, became a wife, became a Mum, separated, now in the divorce process and currently a single Mum. Regarding the Deaf whom I knew at 18 and now; their lives are still the same. No great or significant change.
At UNLEASH I want to be in a supportive and working eco system of mentors, like minded young social entrepreneurs, approaching challenges differently, see what is being done out there that works. The objective for being an UNLEASHER is to plug into a wider community of young social entrepreneurs, who are passionate about human design centered thinking solutions to create impact and change lives as we tackle the SDGs.
Kenyan Deaf challenges are wide and inter-related, communication barriers, lacking access to information, lacking access to education, quality health care, swift justice, information about land rights, and accessing employment opportunities. How can they be self-sustaining members of the society? How can the larger hearing community consider the Deaf for job opportunities, be more inclusive and market their product and services with them in mind? This relates well with 6 of the SDGs namely: No poverty; Good health and well-being; Quality education; Reduced inequalities; Sustainable cities and communities; Partnerships for the Goals.
There is a conviction inside of me that this is the reason why I am here on this earth. My purpose for living — to impact Deaf lives. My son recently began to learn Kenyan sign language, I did not impose it on him, I wanted it to come from his heart and he loves it. He loves it so much that he was instrumental for his school accepting Kenyan sign language to be taught as a course effective September 2017. Now that is what I term acceptance and inclusivity. I do not want to continue saying hardly but replace it with humanely. That is all I am asking for an extraordinary level of humanism.
#UNLEASHLab
#Kenya
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#ExtraordinaryLevelOfHumanism
