A poor woman who inspired me to start empowering others- Rachel Ruto.
First lady, Mama Rachel Ruto has today revealed a poor woman who inspired her to start empowering other women financially.
Speaking today at the Table Banking forum in Kibra in the company of US First Lady Jill Biden, Madam Rachel stated that her push to start the joyful women foundation did not start yesterday.
She revealed this started around 25 years ago when President Ruto was vying for Eldoret North Member of parliament.
She had just been married and was showing support to her husband by campaigning for him in their constituency.
She stated,”That’s about 25 years ago. I had an opportunity to go to the villages of Eldoret campaigning to help my husband, now President.
“So I went as a wife and a mother to go meet the mothers and the youth and just to see what was happening and helping campaign,” she narrated.
She then pass by a group of women seated and decided why not ask for their votes.
She narrated,”They were seated, not very far from the road, about 50 of them, and I stopped to talk to them just asking for votes. But something different caught my attention.”
She then noticed a woman who was looking at her smiling but the face could clearly show, she had not ate anything.
She narrated,”Because what I saw was not very acceptable, because I was wondering if a mother comes from her house without shoes to come for that kind of a meeting, what was the situation at home? What about her children? And many things went round my head.”
The Hon. William won the Eldoret North parliamentary seat, she decided it is time to do something for the women.
She stated,”I kept wondering, and I kept talking to people, because for me, I was looking for sustainability for those women.
“And so quickly, I called for a meeting with other women leaders, and I met the women under a tree and we started talking to them about table banking.”
“On August 31 2009,Joyful Women Organisation was born. It was named so because of that one woman that did not have shoes, had not had breakfast, yet had a good smile, just to say that sometimes in life, you may not have everything, but nobody can take that away from you.”
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