A propos de Grace Wairimu Omondi
My name is Grace Wairimu Omondi. I am a Kenyan citizen living in Kakamega County. I am 48 years old, a wife, a mother of two children and a mother to many other orphaned, vulnerable, and children with special needs. My love as a mother has been driven to impact many lives and create tangible change in my community. I am passionate about helping vulnerable and marginalized individuals in my community and beyond as it gives me joy to inspire others and see lives transformed. The zeal to see other lives transformed has sharpened my experience as an advocate for the less privileged in society.
As an advocate, I am driven by passion and unwavering commitment to creating sustainable and tangible change in my community. Through my zeal to be part of the solution and the change that my community needs, I am actively engaged in women empowerment initiatives in the grassroot communities. As a leader I have spearheaded the formation of women groups focusing on income generating activities, access to quality healthcare services, mentorship, and leadership as a strategy for women empowerment. I am the pioneer and
chairlady of NOBLE LADIES WOMEN GROUP formed in 2012. The group focuses on table banking, entrepreneurship, and mentorship of young adolescent girls regarding financial management. The group is located in Kakamega County and has 25 members, and through its income generating activities each member has been able to establish their own business besides the group’s. Through the businesses established by the 25 members of Noble Ladies Women Group, more than 200 young women have been employed by these businesses building a network of economically empowered women in the grassroots of Kakamega. This has also contributed to the reduction of poverty level in my community.
Also in 2012, I founded REHOBOTH SELF HELP GROUP that focuses on helping
community members living with HIV and AIDS. The group is located in Kakamega County and has 15 active members serving as volunteers. Through the group, my team has impacted over 120 individuals through training on nutrition, proper medication, self-acceptance, and financial support. We also offer home based care for individuals unable to reach the care facilities.
Through the team we engage in follow up sessions to ensure individuals registered in the program adhere to the set nutrition and medicine requirements, thus promoting a healthy lifestyle among the program’s participants.
In 2014, I founded STEPPING STONE SELF HELP GROUP that focuses on income
generating activities. As a group, we have ventured in activities such as cash crop farming, livestock keeping, pig, poultry farming, and posho mills investments. The group is located in Kakamega County and has 20 members. Part of the group’s income is directed to caring for the elderly in the community. Through the initiative the group has been able to reach more than 140 elderly persons. The support offered depends on the needs of the persons identified, which ranges from food, clothing, proper shelter, healthcare services, and hygiene. The initiative has created significant social, health, and economic impact in the lives of individuals who have benefited.
Besides serving my community in Kakamega County, I am the co-founder of World Kingdom Service, a mission group that reaches out to communities in Arid and semi-arid parts of Kenya – the East and West Pokot. Through the group, my team has established several projects in both East and West Pokot. One of the schools’ projects established is AIYAN Primary School in East Pokot, Tiati constituency. The mixed primary school currently has 25 girls and 14 boys. The school also offers boarding services for learners living far from the school’s location. The school offers free-learning services to the learners.
In addition, I pioneered the start of a women’s group – CHEPARER. The group focuses on table banking as a means to empower the women. The CHEPARER women group in East Pokot has 20 women committed to changing the narratives of their families from poverty to economically stable status. Besides the school project and the women groups, I coordinate quarterly donation drives for clothes, food, and resources for building semi-structured housing for needy members in the community to promote decent living among communities in the Arid and Semi-arid parts of Kenya.
A BRIEF PROFILE OF HAMIDAH NASSIMBWA THE UGANDAN PRO DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST.
“A Princess who committed a class suicide”.
Hamidah Nassimbwa a.k.a “Nalongo” is a: teacher by profession, community organiser, movement builder, founder member , coach and promoter of the People Power Movement of all Ugandans , regardless of their political, religion, tribal and regional affiliations but uniting to reject and eject by non-violent and constitutional means the; 35 years Tyrannical rule, ending the political repression , human rights abuses, endemic corruption and transition Uganda to democracy , the rule of law , with a specific mission to mobilise Ugandan women , youths and all well-wishers of Uganda , the international community especially the Uganda development Partners for the cause of ending the 35 year superannuated, kleptocracy and gerontocracy which doesn’t allow Ugandans free and fair elections and the will of the people to decide on the nation’s destiny. ,https://wwebow.facok.com/watch/live/?v=483848819248407&ref=watch_permalink
Hamidah who also enjoys the privilege of being a Princess in the Buganda Kingdom, https://www.britannica.com/place/Buganda was born on 28/02/1984. She completed her Bachelor of Education degree from Uganda’s Kyambogo University in the year 2005. She joined activism in 2009 when for the first time her inner call and human rights passion made her lead a group of women vendors of the famous Owino Park Yard market in Kampala, to protest the state sponsored arson that led to the burning of all vendors merchandise because the vendors expressed rejection of the Junta in power. The fire was a deliberate move by the state to impoverish the vendors , grab the public market land from the poor vendors and allocate the land to the brutal regime loyalists. https://mobile.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=674902252544199&id=100000732904087&set=a.209465475754548&_rdc=1&_rdr
Since 2009, she has been a movement builder and through community training empowering and creating awareness of Ugandan citizens’ civil liberties and human rights, by holding village meetings and town halls, and building people owned, people led, people powered grassroots social movements hence the Power awakening. Like Sally did in Sudan Hamidah also believes it will take people power to reject and eject the Gun Power in Power and return Uganda on the path for democracy, good governance, respect for human rights, permanent peace, tranquillity and prosperity for all citizens of Uganda. https://mobile.facebook.com/360451874685503/posts/685763932154294/?_rdc=1&_rdr
https://www.facebook.com/rhizingwomenug/posts/684465845617436
By 2015 Hamidah the courageous woman came into limelight after she organised and mobilised over 1000 women to demand electoral justice by asking the parliament of Uganda to pass the laws on free and fair elections. Before even delivering the petition, the women were attacked by the military police. Hamidah provided herself as a human shield to the women. Her courageous and resilient move made the police attack her and stripped her naked in public, an action that was meant to humiliate her and scare other women. The action of the police emboldened the woman and the police were forced to break her leg. She has experienced detention and numerous arrests without charge due to her civil and human rights work.
She has always believed that women power is crucial in the emancipation of society from political and social injustice because women as mothers of everyone in any nation have more at stake, play fair , peaceful and rational roles, the reason she thinks the women must be empowered to stand up and occupy their leadership role in any struggle ,conflict and undertaking never again shall women be regarded second class citizens or stakeholders.. She believes in equality in a gender balanced society , not in chauvinism or superiority of any sort.
Hamidah is among the first to be trained by Rhize fellows in 2015. Rhize is a global network of movement-building coaches that train and support grassroots movements in their local communities. Rhize provides coaches with strategies, skills and resources to partner with and train activists in their community, creating a force multiplying effect that helps movements sustain and grow their impact. https://www.rhize.org
She has also partnered with various organisations in her human rights work, including FIDA-Uganda, Women’s Development Network, Akina Mama Wa Afrika, Forum for Women in Democracy, Rhizing Women, Centre for Constitutional Governance and the Uhuru Institute for Social Development.
She is also a founder member of jobless brotherhood, a pressure group that was formed to unite the unemployed Ugandan youths against government silence on unemployment. She was one of the youths that Police arrested and remanded after they were found carrying banners with the wordings, We are mourning for our country over corruption, unemployment, youth desertion. Do not lead us into temptations.
Being so passionate about civil liberties and human rights, Hamidah was among the activists in the frontline condemning human rights abuses, violations, abductions and torture in the run up to and after January’s contested presidential election Uganda https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/01/1081662
In the run up to and after the violence marred January 14th 2021 election in Uganda, opposition; presidential candidates, campaign managers, polling agents, community organizers and other political activists were rounded up held incommunicado, tortured and suffered physical harm and many killed despite Ugandan law incorporating many of the international and regional human rights obligations, including protection for freedoms of speech and assembly, a prohibition on torture and inhumane and degrading treatment, and explicitly that provides for the prosecution of officials committing such abuses https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/01/1081662 and “Report on Governmental Abuse, Violations, and Misconduct in Advance of the January 14, 2021 Presidential Election and Its Aftermath” by BRUCE I AFRAN
The 35 years Despotic Ugandan regime does not uphold these laws or building on the measures against the military police, including reforming the security sector, conducting transparent investigations and fair trials for abuses against journalists and others, and properly compensating victims because violence is their means of retaining power
Over the years, Hamidah has experienced detention and numerous arrests without charge due to her civil and human rights work. She was arrested and detained in Luzira prisons in the year 2015 for three months for alleged crimes connected to her civil and human rights activism.
Having been a victim of trumped-up charges, experiencing detention and numerous arrests without charges before, and knowing the extent to which the regime will go to silence people with divergent political views and freedom advocates such as herself who relentlessly agitate for respect for the Uganda constitution and citizens’ civil rights and human rights.
To escape abduction, detention and death by the brutal regime in the aftermath of the 14th January 2021 election Hamidah decided to operate from underground where she is clandestinely continuing to train and mobilise Ugandan citizens and activist to rise in a non violent uprising that should sooner than later cause regime change in the same way the people of Sudan under the leadership of a courageous woman Alaa Salah did it in 2019.
Hamidah the strong critic of General Yoweri Museveni’s rule that comprise human rights abuses, violations, corruption and impunity in Uganda since 1986, like Alaa Salah has decided to take on the bull by its horns. She is playing a pivotal role in pulling down the Junta in Uganda.
