[00:00:00] Chanda Smith Baker: Hello Community. You are listening to conversations with Chanda where leadership gets real and personal. This is where we cut through the noise to confront the issue shaping our world and our community from power and justice to the heart of community change, hosted by me, Chanda Smith Baker, president, and CEO of the St. Paul Minnesota Foundation. Thank you for joining me on Conversations Chanda. It is quite a pleasure to meet you, Souphak. Who produces the podcast, um, met you and thought that you would be an incredible guest. And so I have asked very few questions because I just want to be, uh, curious and, and pull out, um, all that we can about what.
[00:00:43] Chanda Smith Baker: We are facing as women in leadership, what the possibilities are, and to talk a little bit about your journey. So thank you for joining me and if you would not mind, if you could just introduce yourself to the audience.
[00:00:56] Harriette Chiggai: Um, thank you very much. My name is Harriette Chiggai. I'm a lawyer by profession and currently I serve the president of Kenya as the Women Rights Advisor, Dr.
[00:01:08] Harriette Chiggai: William Sam Ruto.
[00:01:09] Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:10] Harriette Chiggai: Yeah.
[00:01:11] Chanda Smith Baker: Well, I mean, those words hardly reflect what it probably took for you to become the advisor to the president. Can you talk a little bit about your journey, um, to getting there?
[00:01:25] Harriette Chiggai: Thank you very much. Um, it's been a long journey and I must say not an easy journey. I started off, um, I could clearly say maybe from.
[00:01:38] Harriette Chiggai: When I finished college, um, my work generally has been highly inspired by my mother, let me just say it that way. Born in a small slum in a small city called Nakuru. While we were growing up, I think the entire area was really the low income earns, and, uh, my parents had to send us to. Boarding school while we were very young, so I went to boarding in class four.
[00:02:10] Harriette Chiggai: That is barely. About 10 years old went to boarding, and I think that's where my journey began because when you get to boarding, you are forced to really grow very fast boarding school. And in Kenya, our boarding schools were really good. Actually. There are safe heaven. For the children growing up within the low income earning, um, environment.
[00:02:36] Harriette Chiggai: So my journey started in boarding school and I really liked, um, um, that period because from the time I was a little girl, I was always picked to be a leader, either to train or to lead at the small children. So I used to do a lot of dancing. I used to do a lot of teaching other smaller kids, you know, um, small games and we didn't get to competition.
[00:03:01] Harriette Chiggai: I remember we used to dance a dance called Scottish. And the reason as to why I joined that team is because we'd go to the nationals directly and the school would win anyway because there were very few Scottish dancers in the country. But by and large, yes. I would do a lot of poetry as well. I used to write, write poetry and other children would recite my poems and they win.
[00:03:23] Harriette Chiggai: And I used to recite as well. So over to high school, same story. I was made the games perfect. At some point I was made a prefect of all prefect because I used to stand my ground. Mm-hmm. And I really wanted to be a lawyer from a very young age. And the reason as to why I wanted to be a lawyer from a young age was to actually deal with the injustices in the society.
[00:03:46] Harriette Chiggai: And because of that, in the drive that I had, I think I carried that forward. So over to high school, same story. I remember in school sometimes teachers would, can you, you know, like. Group punishment simply because, wait, they would do what group punishments? Mm-hmm. Our class is making noise. All of you're beaten.
[00:04:08] Harriette Chiggai: Like beaten. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We used to be beaten all times in school. Like discipline was akin, you know? So I remember in one of those instances I refused to be beaten. I just told the teacher I came to high school so that I don't get to be beaten. Like I'm done with cans. You know, it was normal, you know, to have caning in school, and the teacher decided to make me against perfect.
[00:04:32] Harriette Chiggai: Perfect. Out of that. So I didn't get punished, but I was made a perfect, so that already told me that I have to plug into leadership, or rather, I got into leadership from a very young age and I took my team, my basketball team to nationals after 15 years break. So having gone through boarding, I found myself always two years ahead of my peers over to campus.
[00:04:59] Harriette Chiggai: I did low. And within that space, um, I was in leadership as well. I still played basketball for my university. I was a representative of the university in Kenya, model United Nations. And by the time I finished high school, uh, campus, I had done two jobs. I was part of the researchers for the Constitution Review Commission of our country.
[00:05:22] Harriette Chiggai: Then I was working under two Professor Polo Lumumba and Nancy Barraza, who's the current chair of our GBV and FEMICIDE committee for the president. So by the time I finished, um, campus, I had had several jobs and I left campus with a job. So by the time I get myself into the law school where we were doing two years, I was actually.
[00:05:47] Harriette Chiggai: Having a job, you know? And so it has never been easy, but I've never looked back. Yeah,
[00:05:56] Chanda Smith Baker: that's really helpful context and I'm trying to translate in my mind a couple of things. One is, you were from a low income community, which you called a slum.
[00:06:05] Harriette Chiggai: Yeah.
[00:06:06] Chanda Smith Baker: And also you went to boarding school. So was school free?
[00:06:10] Harriette Chiggai: No. Um, born with parents who were civil servants at the time. My mother was a teacher. And remember, teachers would be moved from one area to another very easily, and my mother had to go back to the countryside. Mm-hmm. So that she teach from a school, small school within the countryside. And my father had to moved to another region.
[00:06:34] Harriette Chiggai: So by virtue of that, it was not viable for us children to still go to day school because of that imbalance. The small income areas then within our country were slightly decent because you'd find it's a one room house with a one small kitchen, you know, and a one room. But that was the home where we knew when we were growing up.
[00:07:00] Harriette Chiggai: So all of us had to go to boarding. My mother had to go to the rural setup, and that is how now I moved from one school to the other, but boarding. Um, and then from that, then I went to law school. My other siblings did very well. But within those periods, I think my parents caught up, you know, like going to the farm.
[00:07:21] Harriette Chiggai: My mother decided to do a lot of farming, so they caught up. And we were liberated from the low income, um, setup to fairly decent home now because she did a lot of farming. Um, we went to my grandmother's from my grandmother's, they bought their own land where my father is up to now, and the farm was very productive.
[00:07:46] Harriette Chiggai: So that is how we went to. High school. You know, by the time I was getting to college, I think we were fairly very stable. But fourth year of my going to school, I actually paid my fees because my younger sister was already joining Campus Engineering. My brother was already in campus doing engineering. My big sister in Oxford, fully sponsored at that time.
[00:08:10] Harriette Chiggai: And then myself, law school. So still it was heavy on my parents. So yeah, so I did quite a bit to sustain myself, both in school and from there. I think whichever job I applied I got, because I want to believe I was two or three steps ahead of my peers. From then finished law school, got into leadership within the Law Society of Kenya.
[00:08:33] Harriette Chiggai: Within the committees. And it has never been the same. It was from one position to another to serving as council member in, uh, law Society of Kenya to becoming the Vice President of the Law Society of Kenya, to transitioning to East Africa Law Society as a council member and Secretary General and now to this position.
[00:08:54] Harriette Chiggai: So, and within that, I was still doing my job as a practicing lawyer.
[00:08:58] Chanda Smith Baker: So I don't know much about Kenya.
[00:09:00] Harriette Chiggai: Yeah.
[00:09:01] Chanda Smith Baker: What can you share with me about Kenya and particularly about women in leadership in Kenya?
[00:09:11] Harriette Chiggai: Well, when it comes to women in leadership, we are still lagging behind. Um, you find this is the first government that has registered the highest number of, uh, governors.
[00:09:22] Harriette Chiggai: We have 47 governors in our country, but this particular government actually, um, we have about, we had about seven elected governors and we lost one seat, you know? Um, and now they're six. When you look at, uh, matters to do with the balancing the Parliament, we are still not there yet. Uh, parliament is not balanced.
[00:09:47] Harriette Chiggai: You see, it's still unconstitutional. Uh, we have the one third rule in terms of representation, but when you look at political representation, it's the people who elect. We are still lagging behind. And the question is why you find most of the women don't have enough resources to run an election. You find these issues to do with GBV.
[00:10:09] Harriette Chiggai: You find there's still issues to do with biases, uh, whether women can take lead or not. In some areas, like where I come from, the Western region, we do not have even a single elective seat. Single constituency seat. So what does that tell you? Our traditions are still holding women back. We have issues to do with the finance and also an opportunity.
[00:10:33] Harriette Chiggai: To actually have these women take up leadership positions. So we have done well in terms of private sector, you find there are big blue chip companies like Safaricom, KCB, they have actually ensured that we have enough women within their, within their boards. We have women in leadership, but that's not enough public sector, private sector.
[00:10:55] Harriette Chiggai: We need to work together to ensure that we push the number of women, and that has to be deliberate. When you look at leadership and elective positions, there's a lot that needs to be done because most of the political parties we have, most of them are male owned. You know, do we have enough laws to push women into leadership?
[00:11:15] Harriette Chiggai: Yes, the laws are there, but is there political goodwill? Yes, there could be political goodwill, but is there opportunities and is there space for these women to take up these key leadership positions? And the answer, we have it out there is that we still have the gaps. The gaps that still affect women in terms of leadership are still there.
[00:11:35] Harriette Chiggai: Biases, financial, um, gaps. The society itself. In some regions, women are still not accepted as leaders. Mm-hmm. So these issues. Will still be there for a long time. Not unless we all are deliberate to ensure that we ensure we push as enough women into leadership positions as possible.
[00:11:57] Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. The, the other segment that you made, um, was about you didn't come to school to get can or to get beaten, which implies that there's a, there was a different path that would be harmful.
[00:12:11] Chanda Smith Baker: So you just laid out sort of the professional lens, the political lens. But what do we need to understand about the safety or the lack of protection of women?
[00:12:25] Harriette Chiggai: Well, um, our office, currently we are running a campaign on safe, home safe spaces. Why? So we want to believe that we must create safe homes and safe spaces for all women and girls on matters.
[00:12:40] Harriette Chiggai: Education, the policy, the government actually put a policy on a no can. Kids' policy. Why was that? It's because it became an abuse. In some schools, it was misused. You know, there are some schools where children's lost their lives. Children's were hurt. And again, the measure of punishment to a child cannot be done using a cane.
[00:13:04] Harriette Chiggai: You know, for instance, if you look at the children who were really beaten while they were growing up, these are societal, these are mis. Misconnection somewhere. You know, in fact in our country they say the millennials are abused parents. You know, the kind of training, the kind of schools we went to, they were simple or near militant schools.
[00:13:26] Harriette Chiggai: But that has since changed. Because currently as we speak, the education sector in our country has really, um, changed where we have a full return to school policy for the young girls. And issues to do with canning of children has actually been stopped. But when it comes to creating the safe spaces for women and girls, you find that issues to do with GBV are still prevalent.
[00:13:48] Harriette Chiggai: You know, GBV in our country, especially last year, we even added femicide to it. Well, when you look at women leaders as well, what happens is we have a new trend on technology assisted G-B-V-T-F-G-B-V, where you find AI has checked. Women are being torn apart, um, for as long as they want to get into leadership positions.
[00:14:12] Harriette Chiggai: Personally, I am a victim of T-F-G-B-V, not once, not twice, even as I speak now, I have a, a, a case in court where I sued a fellow lawyer who was very aggressive on how can a woman rise to this level if you didn't sleep around, you know? So that perception is still there, that you cannot make it if nobody else can actually place you there.
[00:14:39] Harriette Chiggai: It's not about your qualifications.
[00:14:41] Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. Can you explain what that is? The
[00:14:43] Harriette Chiggai: G-B-V-T-F-G-B-V is where the social platforms are used to insult women, to push women to the wall so that they actually don't run for elections. We've had instances where women have actually been aggressed. You know, um, your naked photos are thrown everywhere in the social media, whether it's true or not, but the damage has already been done, fabricated, um, stories.
[00:15:08] Harriette Chiggai: About you. You know, most people do that. They don't even think about your families. They don't think about your children. They don't think about the impact or the effects of their action and aggression that is doing not only to you, but everybody around you. So you find the current trend is actually even killing people.
[00:15:29] Harriette Chiggai: They kill you, put you in a coffin. And they share all that out there, you see, so technology in my view, also has been used badly. And the question then is, how do we safeguard data? How do we safeguard the private spaces for leaders and anybody else, not just leaders? How do we protect, um, women and children within the technology space?
[00:15:58] Harriette Chiggai: You know, so that for me also boils a whole question on data governance. How do we protect data that we already have? Because how do people even get my private phone and I didn't give it out and use that as a platform, not only to abuse me, but abuse anybody else who's interconnected within my space. You know, so we as leaders, as women leaders, um, I think there's a lot that still needs to be done to protect and create the safe spaces for women leaders and even the young girls who are coming up and it's as bad as young people.
[00:16:37] Harriette Chiggai: Now, if you find young female leaders, most of them don't want to take leadership roles. In fact, you bar very good. People from taking up leadership roles because of the negativity within the spaces of governance, within the spaces where we consider them safe for anybody, you know, so. A lot still needs to be done.
[00:17:02] Harriette Chiggai: We are still not quite there. And that is why for us, um, our rallying call is that we must create the safe spaces for women and girls. It doesn't matter where, whether it's the workspace, whether it is at home, whether it's the streets, when the women and children are just walking around, you find that, um.
[00:17:23] Harriette Chiggai: Currently as we speak, there's a lot of aggression towards young girls and not young girls alone. Even boys now, you know, long time ago you'd say girls are not safe, but now we are saying children are not safe. Mm-hmm Because we took a lot of weight on a girl. We also forgot that this young man that we are not protecting and we are harassing now will actually be an abuser in future.
[00:17:47] Harriette Chiggai: So we need to take care of children whole assembly. And make the young boys understand that a society that does not take care of its women will never take care of its children. And a society that loses its women and children has no future. You know? So a lot needs to be done. And within our country, we now have the GBV Femicide committee.
[00:18:10] Harriette Chiggai: That was put in place by his excellence. It's actually an executive office of the President, uh, task force, which is looking at issues to do with GBV and femicide, and we are hoping that by the time we are done with that work. Matters to do with GBV will be matters of the past. Um, within our office also, we've decided when it comes to issues to do with GBV, we look for the perpetrators or the supported perpetrators because for a long time everybody has been dealing with a victim.
[00:18:41] Harriette Chiggai: But now we are saying we need to stop looking at the victims. Women should stop crying. Can we try and stop the scourge? And the answer is yes. We can only do that by creating more awareness, by reaching out to the same, um, spaces with the same persons whose number in terms of aggression to women is high.
[00:19:02] Harriette Chiggai: When you look at data, data also tells us that those who are aggressing or aggressors against women are actually women persons who are very close to them. In most cases, it's husbands intimate partners, whether it's a boyfriend girlfriend situation or within a home setup. A father against the child, an uncle against Nene nephew.
[00:19:26] Harriette Chiggai: So children are not safe within the spaces where it needs to be safe. So are the women, because those who rape women, those who had women, are people close to them or people who've been around them? A majority of them are people who've been around them for a long time, or they have a relationship, so hence the Safe Home Safe Spaces campaign that we are running to ensure that we create awareness.
[00:19:56] Harriette Chiggai: As bold as it can be and as far wide as we can spread the, the information so that people can just take care of women and children.
[00:20:05] Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah, I, I don't know, like, I just felt a little bit emotional actually about this. And what is coming up for me is number one, uh, a, a young black woman who just lost her life in the north side of Minneapolis.
[00:20:21] Chanda Smith Baker: Um, a domestic situation. And, um, was, was shot and killed, and that was very recent. And we know that there are a lot of things that are going on that we will never know, um, that will show up in, in our workspaces and community in different ways because they're being hurt and harmed. The other is, um, the school shootings, the political, um, violence that we've seen here in our state.
[00:20:48] Chanda Smith Baker: I guess my question to you is, what do you think that we need to learn? In our country about making safe space a reality?
[00:21:00] Harriette Chiggai: Well, I think we all need to look at ourselves and ask ourselves, are we being human beings or animals, or are animals behaving better than human beings? Yeah. Because it's insane to actually see the kind of, uh, violence that is met against.
[00:21:22] Harriette Chiggai: Human beings by human beings, you know? Um, what is so hard in us to reboot ourselves and tell ourselves we are different because we have feelings. We are humans. Is it so hard to take care of your neighbor and your neighbor can be anybody? Um, is it so hard for us to be good people? Like, can we not just do one good act every day?
[00:21:51] Harriette Chiggai: Is it that we must be cruel? We have to be forced to just be good people? What happened to human beings in the art of care? You know, like, can't you just wake up and be nice to the next person, serve them a cup of tea, you know, check on your neighbors whether they're okay, whether they slept. Okay. It sounds more spooky because we left humanity.
[00:22:17] Harriette Chiggai: Hmm. We've just become bad people, you know? And, and the art of togetherness. The art of socialization, the art of how we socialized even as we grew up, and now with the coming of the internet and phones and name it, the interaction between humans has now been stopped by something called a phone. Mm-hmm.
[00:22:41] Harriette Chiggai: Now, instead of us having conversations, our conversations are behind screens. Yeah. So we are actually losing the human touch, which in my view, we should recalibrate and take it back and find ways of solving our differences differently
[00:22:58] Chanda Smith Baker: when, um, there's all kinds of ways that we see, um, people and we see countries.
[00:23:05] Chanda Smith Baker: And what did you learn about America growing up in Kenya?
[00:23:13] Harriette Chiggai: Um, it's my first time in Minal and I can say the one thing I like about here is actually order. Mm, despite the fact that there's a lot of, um, the insecurity right now. And maybe it could be attached to the elections or something that is going on.
[00:23:32] Harriette Chiggai: Um, order is good. Any society that has order, I think you can be able to plan and do many things. Um, having grown and uh, bred in Kenya is one thing that I think both cities can intertwine. Um, the art. Of coming together and doing things as communities, the art of communities sitting in and saying, Hey, wait a minute, we have to take care of each other because nobody else is gonna do it.
[00:24:05] Harriette Chiggai: You can't wait for someone to come from anywhere else to actually come and tell you how you should. But if you live within a community and you know, there are specific gaps within that community, no matter whether it's security, whether it's, um, matters with education, um, compassion, um, I had an opportunity to go to the Metro Transit and just to listen to the women there and the kind of work they're doing within the community.
[00:24:32] Harriette Chiggai: It was very impressive. They do CSR activities where they bring the families together. Um, they have set up community, um, CSR, where they help communities within their spaces. And I'm like, that would be good because if everybody would take time. Even if it's one hour a week just to do community work, to take care of their neighbor, to take care, to watch over something, that would go a long way because we are rebooting the communities to plug in and be grounded on the safety nets and to care about each other.
[00:25:10] Harriette Chiggai: I think the art of caring is what we need to bring back in the, in humanity. Yeah.
[00:25:15] Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. I, I love that. And does it feel more orderly than you imagined it to be?
[00:25:21] Harriette Chiggai: Well, it is, um, it's very orderly from someone coming from outside. Um, very busy in terms of you can barely see anybody out here. I think everybody is somewhere working, and then you can barely see people in the streets, you know, not unless it's very intentional.
[00:25:43] Harriette Chiggai: Um, but again, I guess. It's how the city has been made back home. We are more outside than inside. In fact, we like being more outside, so you'll find us working from out there. Take a laptop, sit outside and do our work. We are in buildings, but because of a good weather also, we don't need to really work within buildings and all.
[00:26:04] Harriette Chiggai: So the fresh air and meeting people every day in Africa is different from here where you find everybody's in the subways, in the offices, walking in between the small corridors, interconnecting buildings. So you rarely see people here. But back home you actually see people.
[00:26:21] Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a, it is an interesting point, particularly what you just talked about in terms of being in relationship with each other.
[00:26:27] Chanda Smith Baker: So can you see the barrier to, like how we might interact together? Like do you see that as. Like there's order, but do you think that that creates a barrier for like getting to know people and, and the human piece that you have been describing?
[00:26:43] Harriette Chiggai: Well, I also tend to think maybe because you work per hour and shift, you tend to be too busy.
[00:26:50] Harriette Chiggai: Our, our work schedule is eight to five, so between between six 30 and eight you could go to the gym workout, meet people there, have a chat. Get ready, go to work. Um, you could do your work between one o'clock, take a lunch break, meet people somewhere, have a chat, go back to work, uh, between two o'clock and five, back on your desk from five, you can decide.
[00:27:17] Harriette Chiggai: You can go out, take a drink for five minutes. Uh, meet people before you get to your house. I think maybe that's what is different there in here, because we have a lot of time. To actually interact and we like it. Um, over the weekends you'll find people visiting each other. You know, I can quickly go and say, call somebody, say, Hey, I'm coming to see you for a few minutes.
[00:27:41] Harriette Chiggai: You know, or you can call assistant and say, you know what, I'm passing by. So life there is easier in terms of you have everybody around you that you can offload something. You know, you can quickly, quickly call your brother and say, okay, you know, I need my car to be dropped by the mechanic. I dunno whether that's possible here.
[00:28:03] Harriette Chiggai: Or you can actually call a mechanic where you are to fix your car and they'll come and do it, and then you go, you know? So trying to make life easy, trying to interact more, trying to have social setups. I think we have more of that. You know, and putting families together. So you find that I can easily take a drive to my mother's place, or my grandmother's place, or my, uh, for illustration purposes, or a brother's place or a sister place.
[00:28:31] Harriette Chiggai: I can take my children and dump them in a friend's place for two hours, go do what I wanna do and then come back or go with my children wherever I'm going, and we come back. So you find that young mothers are always having their bundle of joys with them. Even within the markets and all that. And I think that could be something that is missing here because of caregivers.
[00:28:52] Harriette Chiggai: So you find parents are overworking, you know, they're overworking around the clock, you know? But I'm impressed that Minneapolis is actually an eight to five kinder series. It's not a 24 hour series, so families get to meet every evening, if at all. Yeah. Earlier
[00:29:10] Chanda Smith Baker: you were also talking about, uh, public policy to protect women.
[00:29:16] Chanda Smith Baker: And children, what are the barriers, if any, are you finding to advancing those protections?
[00:29:23] Harriette Chiggai: I think in Kenya or generally in Africa, the biggest barrier on, uh, protection of women and children is basically how our mindset is who is a woman who's a child. You find in some communities, um, women and children are equated to.
[00:29:42] Harriette Chiggai: Animals. Like if I come and say, Hey, how are you doing, John, today? How is, uh, family? He'll say, all the cows and goats are fine. You know, without even making reference to the wife and the children. Because in some communities, animals could be more valued, you know, as assets. Um, in some communities you find women are not hard.
[00:30:08] Harriette Chiggai: They're supposed to be housewives. They're supposed to cook. Um, they're supposed to take care of children. Um, and that is the culture. So to undo that culture. Will take a long time 'cause it's in the mindset to undo the damage that has been done over time will also take a lot. And that is why you find strong women or women who have made it into leadership position.
[00:30:33] Harriette Chiggai: They didn't just get there. They have fought war. Um, they have been fought. Um, a lot of things have actually been done along those lines for them to reach where they have reached. And most of them actually when they, they have stories to tell, you know, very painful stories to tell in most cases. And, uh, you find that.
[00:30:58] Harriette Chiggai: That also discourages many young girls from getting there. Mm-hmm. So culture for me, um, needs to be rebooted because you find there are some communities who are women actually believe being beaten is to be loved. They've been cultured that way. You know, they actually don't know that is. Aggression towards them.
[00:31:21] Harriette Chiggai: Look at matters to do with FGM that is female, uh, genital mutilation in some communities, despite the fact that our government has put laws to say, don't do it, they still hide their babies and they're still doing it, including if not taking them to countries across where it is legalized, they do the cuts and bring the children back.
[00:31:45] Harriette Chiggai: So our country, in terms of legal laws and regulations, there's a lot that is going around that space. But when it comes to implementation, the implementers are the same cultural people who are really biased towards a women and girl. So you find we still have problems. There are some communities. Women can still not own land.
[00:32:07] Harriette Chiggai: You know, there are some areas where if you're a widow, you can't inherit. Your husband property, despite the fact that laws are there. So you find our work as women rights advisor and with the Ministry of Gender and all the players within that sector. There's a lot that needs to be done in terms of training.
[00:32:27] Harriette Chiggai: There's a lot that needs to be done in terms of awareness, because laws are there, rules are there, but implementation of that is a big problem. Um, for instance, when you go to some schools. You know, you find that children can go to school sometimes because the parents expect them to go and fetch water.
[00:32:48] Harriette Chiggai: They did eat last night. So the government is really trying to put school feeding programs in school. So we have to accelerate what the government is doing and support that. Um. Because if you teach a hungry child, it is very difficult for that child to perform. We also have schools where children have never seen a phone.
[00:33:10] Harriette Chiggai: They dunno what a computer is. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So our work basically is to accelerate that and try and, you know, refurbish the schools put in place. Um. Virtual libraries so that all these children can actually compete globally, if not with the city centered kids. So a lot still needs to be done because education for me is an equalizer.
[00:33:35] Harriette Chiggai: If a woman and a child is not well educated will still go back to the societal problems. We'll still go back to cultural practices. We'll still go back to women embracing, you know, violence as part of, you know, cultural. Uh, way of saying my husband is still around and he still cares about me. That's why he be me, because I went out and I got late and I still didn't need to come and explain where I was because in most cases, they get killed.
[00:34:07] Harriette Chiggai: When you look at the young ones who are coming now, um, it's like we have lost the sense of emotional intelligence. Hmm. Uh, by the time I was arriving here, there's a young girl whose husband killed her simply because she came home late and funny enough, she was from the same job where she goes every day with her mother, and her mother says, bye my daughter.
[00:34:31] Harriette Chiggai: Go home. The mother checks on her. Have you arrived home? Yes. Mom. The next thing she hears is that her daughter has been murdered. Why? She got home late. So what does that tell us? The young men, we are breeding or we are bringing up, have no sense. Of emotional intelligence, they cannot weigh and say, well, this is the measure of a war I can put between myself and my wife.
[00:34:56] Harriette Chiggai: So why are you killing somebody because they got home late? Doesn't make sense at all. Mm-hmm.
[00:35:00] Chanda Smith Baker: You know, are there, are there consequences?
[00:35:04] Harriette Chiggai: Oh, yes, mother is mother, but we also have, I don't want to give excuses on these GBV issues. Mm-hmm. Mental health is also highly prevalent now because we might assume that everybody's normal, but the truth of the matter is that we have so many patients out here who are dealing with mental health related issues, but it's not even diagnosed, you know?
[00:35:29] Harriette Chiggai: So our emotional imbalance is so high. And there's no one to calm that down. So I tend to think there are various factors that are at interplay, but there must be serious consequences in such cases. Yeah.
[00:35:44] Chanda Smith Baker: You, you shared that um, women that are advancing in their leadership have a lot of very painful journey stories to share.
[00:35:54] Chanda Smith Baker: Um, I recognize that it's not always safe to do that, but how important is it for women to disclose. What they're navigating so that other women don't feel isolated. And what is there a consequence to that in terms of people not wanting to come in? So this is a story that I've been very familiar with. Of the stories of leadership that people don't wanna share, but then other women don't realize that what they're in is similar to what someone else is experiencing.
[00:36:23] Chanda Smith Baker: Hmm. So what is the importance of us sharing our stories as women leaders? I think
[00:36:29] Harriette Chiggai: for me, it's very important that women leaders share their story and even when they're sharing their story, they should mentor the young upcoming ones to go through the same journey and make it easier for them. Why do I say that?
[00:36:45] Harriette Chiggai: You know, when young people see. Women who've made it, they believe, wow, they just got it easy. Um, you get all these brands because nobody understands the kind of journey that you've had to reach where you are. And you find women who share their story, you actually lift somebody else who is in a similar situation and they actually don't know what to do.
[00:37:10] Harriette Chiggai: Mm-hmm. So sometimes sharing your story. And even sharing how you navigated the challenges that you went through actually can save another woman who's going through the same, same, same journey because it's similar everywhere, all over the world. Because every time I met, I meet women leaders. They have a story to tell.
[00:37:34] Harriette Chiggai: They have ways they navigated, they did not carve. And I always tell women that whichever situation that you're in at the moment. No matter how bad it is, it's preparing you for the next bigger opportunity. Somebody told me that actually when I was trying to run for Vice president of LSK and I want that seat, but I was in a very difficult situation at the time and he said, you know what?
[00:38:01] Harriette Chiggai: The moment you put yourself to run for any leadership position, you have attracted many enemies that you know, many that you don't know. And many who are actually forging words for you as you continue with your journey. So what you are having now, wait a minute, pack it on the side and focus why you will meet many more and it's actually prepare how you deal with this situation today will determine the next step that you're going.
[00:38:33] Harriette Chiggai: So you find, I like telling women it's not over. Until it's over. Number one. Number two, never despair. Cry if you must, but you must pick yourself up and move on. Why? There are so many people who are looking up to you. There are so many people who are believing in you. There are so many people. Your journey is shaping.
[00:39:02] Harriette Chiggai: So you have to take yourself to the limit for those who are coming behind you to be better than you, and you must tell your story. You must design and tell your story by yourself, you know, so that nobody else can tell your story the way they want to tell it.
[00:39:19] Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:19] Harriette Chiggai: Yeah.
[00:39:20] Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. Who were you inspired by?
[00:39:24] Harriette Chiggai: Oh, I have had so many, so many people who have inspired me, both male and female actually.
[00:39:31] Harriette Chiggai: Um, when I was younger, the same people who mentored me, including the leadership of the LSK bar at the time, still hold my hand to date. So I still have friends, senior friends who actually drown me. To date, I've been inspired by so many women out here in terms of what they have done. I listen a lot to Maya Angelo's poetry.
[00:39:58] Harriette Chiggai: She's my go-to when I'm very low. Her voice alone is enough. It is Maya's voice. Her voice is enough. Look at Oprah Winfrey's stories. You know, you just get to listen and to hear what others have gone through, no matter how small a portion of that story is. You know, um, Harriette Tubman, my namesake is my go to cape.
[00:40:27] Harriette Chiggai: You know, like, well, I am Harriette and Harriette Tubman. Is one of those people, when you listen to and you read her governance quotes, you actually realize leadership for women actually started long time. A ago, you know, back home within the African Center, we have the likes of Grassa, Michelle. You know, they've made it.
[00:40:52] Harriette Chiggai: It was not easy. Grassa, Michelle was married by two presidents. It's not easy to make two presidents, you know, or to be a wife of two presidents. Mm-hmm. In different setups. You know, she must be an iron lady, you know? I would love to meet her sometime. And then we have, of course, the former president of Ghana.
[00:41:13] Harriette Chiggai: You know, her story also, having been the first amongst men in Africa is not a joke. So there are many women out there who have made it. Um, in Kenya, we have so many women who have gone through the journey. We, they have done quite a lot, the ministers before us, you know, um, the Raki, Tonys, the Margaret Corvias, the Pia CEOs, the mps who were there before us, name it.
[00:41:43] Harriette Chiggai: There are many, you know, and their story is different. When I speak with one of the most senior Julia, um, obo, professor obo, and. The leadership, uh, journey that she has gone through. And I remember when I was in campus, I was one of her mentees when I met her at old age, she, I told her, yes, I was part of your youth parliamentarians.
[00:42:07] Harriette Chiggai: And she was like, okay, you so many, sometimes I don't remember all of you, but the little engagement I had with her when I was in campus, when she was running the youth parliamentarian, um, faction within her foundation. Did a lot for us because it exposes us. Mm-hmm. It exposed us to leadership. So for me, women in leadership must mentor men in leadership, must mentor the young upcoming ones and give them the right rejection in terms of proper governance, proper leadership, and even how to just hold the hand of others who want to be like you, but you ensure they're better than you.
[00:42:47] Chanda Smith Baker: What are you working on right now that gives you the most excitement and hope?
[00:42:52] Harriette Chiggai: Well, my campaign on Safe, home Safe Spaces is my go-to because it's something that will not die today. It's a long life campaign. When I meet you and I say, how safe are you within your work environment? How safe are you at home?
[00:43:08] Harriette Chiggai: How safe are you out there? For me, that gives me the drive. Our office is also working on, um, perpetrators of GBV. Um, in 2023, our government spent nearly 6.9 billion Kenya shillings to deliver babies to babies. When the numbers were tabulated, we discovered that. The motorbike riders, the taxi, the local taxi drivers are actually, um, highly accused of aggression towards women and girls.
[00:43:39] Harriette Chiggai: So we said, we are going to launch our Safe Home Safe Spaces campaign with them. And guess what? Most of them were acting out of ignorance, you know, and most of them actually have agreed to work with us to be our change agents, to be our voice for women and girls, and actually to protect them. You know, so on road safety.
[00:44:00] Harriette Chiggai: Um, on the other hand, we are also helping widow within our country because they are highly marginalized. And while people think widow are older women, no. We have very young women who are widowed, and especially because of the motorbike riders, because of road safety. Most of them don't wear the right gear.
[00:44:20] Harriette Chiggai: Most of them don't take care of their passenger. They don't have medical cover, and the government is really pushing that. Everybody must actually sign up within the universal health coverage medical for all. So. For me, those working with widows and in some cases we are building for them homes, we are now trying to refurbish schools which are dilapidated and where young girls are affected because they have to go around looking for water.
[00:44:46] Harriette Chiggai: And you know, within that space, that's when they are violated. So can we have schools that have water so that if a young girl has to fetch water, then let her fetch the water to school and go home instead of leaving home. Uh, home to go and look for water before she comes to school or leaving school to go look for water before she goes home.
[00:45:05] Harriette Chiggai: So that time is where most young girls are violated. So we are trying to refurbish as many schools within the rural setup to not only equip those schools with water. Solar power, make the classrooms good classrooms where kids can be comfortable and protect their feet from having jiggers to now ensuring that we have a proper school feeding program in all schools so that when the child leaves home and comes to school, at least they will have a meal.
[00:45:35] Harriette Chiggai: At least they will have clean water. At least they'll be safe within that space. So a lot is going on. And also for widows, for those who have no homes. You try and build for them a shelter,
[00:45:48] Chanda Smith Baker: so yeah. Yeah. For those listening, um, those broadly, but specifically women in this case that have an interest in getting more engaged politically, what advice might you offer?
[00:46:06] Harriette Chiggai: Um, number one, they must have a good strategy. Number two. Number one, they must make the decision that they must be leaders because it starts with your mind. How you recalibrate your mind is very important, so you must go for it, and you must go to win, not to lose. And then number two, you must craft a good strategy.
[00:46:31] Harriette Chiggai: A good winning strategy. And number three, you must surround yourself with ideologists, with people who can actually put positive energy every single day. Every si, all human beings are not the same. We all have our weaknesses. We all have our fault and weak points, but you mass around yourself with people who feel those weak points and make your weakness look.
[00:46:58] Harriette Chiggai: Very positive. If you have people who are pulling you within a negative trion, do away with them. You don't need them. Just erase them with a rubber. You know, just erase them. Don't even waste time. Mm-hmm. Because they drain you every day. Your work is to put, you give out so much. You actually need people who now fill your empty pot.
[00:47:23] Harriette Chiggai: So you have two pots. Yours. It's empty all the time because you're giving out so much. You're giving a lot energy. You're leaving. So you need another port that people fill in positive energy. So if you have your second port where everybody around you is feeding negativity, given the amount of work you have to do, the stress that you have every single day, you actually need to erase all of them and feel it afresh.
[00:47:49] Harriette Chiggai: There's nothing wrong with losing people. You better have three people around you, but they're quality. Than having a thousand people around you, but they're all shooting you, you know, every day. You know, so you actually need strong
[00:48:04] Chanda Smith Baker: pillars around you. Yeah. I love that. Um, do you know the term imposter syndrome?
[00:48:11] Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. Yeah. What, because as you're saying it, like, do you, how do you, how do you deal with that?
[00:48:19] Harriette Chiggai: Um, for me, because of a little experience. I have learned not to receive everything at face value. Yeah. Um, I have learned to always do my research even when I give someone an assignment, uh, because most people dwell with the factor that you don't know, so you must know, so you must read widely.
[00:48:47] Harriette Chiggai: You must research so that if for instance, you want to do a speech today, you wake up and your speech writer is not there, are you gonna go blank you, so you must do something around that topic, you know? Yeah. So that when you have to take that assignment, you have something to give. When you are up there and reading a speech, you should be able to turn it around if it doesn't speak to exactly what you want to feed the masses.
[00:49:13] Harriette Chiggai: So for me, I have learned with time. That you have always to do your homework. Also, you have to read widely. You have to interact with people. You must test your teams as well. You must test the strength of your team. You must know the weak points of your teams. You must know their strength. You must also know.
[00:49:35] Harriette Chiggai: So in your team, you'll have the person who makes you laugh. You'll have the person who makes you angry all the time. You know who is the liar in your team. You know who is the back staber in your team. You have to learn your teams so that nobody has to come and tell you, Hey, I mean it is like this. You say, no, no, no.
[00:49:54] Harriette Chiggai: I know Amina very well. So you don't need to tell me about Amina. You cut it off, uh, because also you do not want. You know, to, to have baskets of, you know, water bulbs and you have to create a system whereby if Amina leaves, you feel it, you are not sitting there crying that Amina has left you just say goodbye, Amina over to the next person because you must have rings of performing teams.
[00:50:23] Harriette Chiggai: Because sometimes people will sabotage you because they think you are weak without them, or because they think you can't do if they leave, one leg is out, you know, or, um, sabotage is always there for women and those who back stab you are the closest. Not to you by the way. They're the people who you trusted, you believed in them.
[00:50:46] Harriette Chiggai: You know, you have given them everything Before you know it, they're cooking you, you know. And packing you up like pancake. So you have always to have a plan B, you must have a plan A, plan B, and plan C.
[00:50:59] Chanda Smith Baker: What? What I love I'm, I'm like smiling. If y'all can't see me in this podcast, I'm smiling because it's so true.
[00:51:06] Chanda Smith Baker: And you're saying it as a matter of fact, and some people are still surprised when it happens. Mm-hmm. But it is part of leadership. Yeah.
[00:51:13] Harriette Chiggai: It's part of leader. Leadership is never easy first, it's full of surprises. First you have, uh, to deal with loads and loads of issues, and you have to learn how to contextualize it.
[00:51:27] Harriette Chiggai: I think men know this better than women. You see, when a man leaves his house in the morning, he has left home. Home parked in a small box. I'll come back when I get back home. For us women, we carry our home everywhere. Yeah. You know, um, when he drops the child to school, he has dropped the kid to school.
[00:51:45] Harriette Chiggai: Hey, we'll meet at four o'clock and I'm picking you up. But as women, you're calling the teacher all through the day, how is my baby doing? And the teacher is like, you know what, mom? We got this. Go and work. You go to the media, someone didn't do your eyebrows very well, you carry it forward. Guess what? Men don't care.
[00:52:06] Harriette Chiggai: They rub it and move on. You know, you wake up, you realize, oops, I did not carry my jacket, or I left my jacket. You will be struggling to go get it For men. They're like, oh, well just buy another one. You know? Let's give me, oh, I can borrow your shot. I can borrow, can I have your tie? Over and done with, but as we are miss, perfect, you know, we have to learn that sometimes you don't need to have it well packaged.
[00:52:36] Harriette Chiggai: You know, sometimes when shit happens, remove it. You know, just move on. You know, if your shoe breaks, walk barefoot, go buy another one. Or just go and tell, you know, don't take the video full. Just cut it off here because I don't have shoes. But for us women, we carry our baggage everywhere. So for women leaders, I think it's high time and you know, sometimes I tell people this and they think, oh, my shoes mean, but I know I am actually training you to learn how to do what is important.
[00:53:09] Harriette Chiggai: But things that can be parked or the things that can somebody else can do. Let somebody else handle it. I remember one of my mentors and uh, I hope she'll get this clip, ambassador Monica Juma. She's my counterpart. She's my colleague. When I was appointed as the Women Rights Advisor, she was appointed as the advisor on matters security for the president of Kenya.
[00:53:35] Harriette Chiggai: And you know, she told me, what girl, you know what girl? You just have to get your sheet in order, number one. Number two, get a wife. Get somebody who can do the running around. If you can't, and if you have people around you who have attitude, you just remove them, you know? So those two lessons. Carry me to date.
[00:53:57] Harriette Chiggai: It's like get a life, get a wife. If you can't do it, get somebody else to do it. If you can't pick your child, hey, call the father or call somebody else to go and pick the child. The child will not die because one day somebody else picked them. Somebody you trust, you know? Um, so you have to reorganize your life.
[00:54:16] Harriette Chiggai: So that it does not affect everything that you wanna do, and you have to create a life work balance. Get some time off, you know, get some time to sleep, get sometimes to check and say, Hey, wait a minute, I have to go and see my girls. Because sometimes women, when you get into leadership positions, you lose friends.
[00:54:36] Harriette Chiggai: You will definitely lose your friends because some of them do not want you to get there. Some of them are jealous, some of them just don't want you to be in that space, and some of them are genuinely scared for you. You know, and you know they're running away. They're saying, Hey, hey, hey, for this period when you're dealing with this, I do not want to be part of that.
[00:54:54] Harriette Chiggai: Because they know you. They know your weak points. They know your strengths, they know your weaknesses. And they're like, will she hack it? But then you're saying, you know what guys? We are gonna do this. So we have to do this. Mm-hmm. You know? So you must create the work life balance at any given time. Get some time off and pamper yourself.
[00:55:16] Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
[00:55:16] Harriette Chiggai: You
[00:55:16] Chanda Smith Baker: know? Okay. I got one last question, which is, what advice do you have for women and how they can best support other women? Oh my God, women,
[00:55:26] Harriette Chiggai: you do not have an option. You have no option on this one. You must support other women whether you like their faces or you don't. Because the biggest enemies and the men know this is a woman.
[00:55:41] Harriette Chiggai: If I want to fight you, I'm gonna bring a woman to do it. Because they're gonna do it with all the emotions and they're gonna bring you down. So for women, for me, my advice to all the women of these worlds, it doesn't matter if it's a woman on that seat, you've got to support her. It doesn't truly matter, and you have to pack your emotions and pack them away.
[00:56:04] Harriette Chiggai: But say, the only constituency that women know in this world. Is a woman, the only thing that women now need to sit and say we must do is to support women. Because if you don't do it, nobody's gonna do it. You know? Um, so that constituency for women. I think we always need to call ourselves to a meeting and ask ourselves what is it that we are doing really?
[00:56:33] Harriette Chiggai: Um, you have har here talking about women empowerment, um, how to economically empower women, but all the women around me are pulling me. My leg is on the other side. My, my hand is back being pulled on the, my hair is being pulled in different directions by, by other people. So it's you women who needs to come and reorganize it full Harriette together so that Harriette cannot only serve a small.
[00:56:59] Harriette Chiggai: Community, but can serve all the women, not the, my success is actually as good as the women who are within that space or the people who are surrounding us. So women in leadership actually sometimes feel empty, and that is for all leaders, but for women it's worse because they are battered 24 hours. You know, and they need people to build their muscle to continue building their muscle into that space that they're in, and it'll only be better if other women step up and support all women in leadership.
[00:57:40] Harriette Chiggai: For instance, you're a CEO of a blue chip company. All the women under you must support. You must, and I'm using the word must because. Guess what? There's nobody else who's gonna support women. And if you do well in that position, you've actually opened space for another woman. If you don't do well, men will always take those positions 'cause it's theirs anyway.
[00:58:05] Harriette Chiggai: Mm-hmm. You know? Um, so women have a lot of work, a lot of work. When a woman CEO stands up and say, Hey, I need help in this. We want to see a beehive of other women moving towards that direction. Say, Hey, today she woke up and say she wants to do this. So what support are we giving to ensure that she.
[00:58:25] Harriette Chiggai: Actualize that project that is lacking in US women in most of the time. But for men, a man must come here with a, with an idea. Others will laugh and say, okay, your idea doesn't look all that, but let's patch it up and make it better. They patch it up, make it better, and push him to deliver. But behind that table, all of them have a business deal around that one idea.
[00:58:50] Harriette Chiggai: You know, and so they will ensure they support this leader to perform because the compartments of business that they're going to benefit when he's sitting there as the king. They know and they know their value within those compartments, so they don't have to push and shove. But for women, we are still yet to learn that within a leadership set, there has to be one leader at any given time.
[00:59:16] Harriette Chiggai: Until that person leaves, then you can put yourself, but don't work to remove this person before you support them to perform. Because what you're doing, you are watering down that seat for a woman so that everybody will come and say, but we had a woman the other day, she didn't perform. So by virtue of that, hell no.
[00:59:34] Harriette Chiggai: You women stay on the side and hey, the deputy takes over automatically because they. Seats, ideally is for a man only that they didn't say it. And you as a woman, you are just passing time. So women must learn to guard those seats and let them. Jealousy.
[00:59:52] Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah, that sounds like a mic drop.