0:00:00.473,0:00:05.081
There's a group of people in Kenya.

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People cross oceans to go see them.

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These people are tall.

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They jump high. They wear red.

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And they kill lions.

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You might be wondering, who are these people?

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These are the Maasais.

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And you know what's cool? I'm actually one of them.

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The Maasais, the boys are brought up to be warriors.

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The girls are brought up to be mothers.

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When I was five years old,

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I found out that I was engaged

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to be married as soon as I reached puberty.

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My mother, my grandmother, my aunties,

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they constantly reminded me that

0:00:50.244,0:00:52.964
your husband just passed by.

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(Laughter) Cool, yeah?

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And everything I had to do from that moment

0:01:01.075,0:01:05.706
was to prepare me to be a perfect woman at age 12.

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My day started at 5 in the morning,

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milking the cows, sweeping the house,

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cooking for my siblings, collecting water, firewood.

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I did everything that I needed to do

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to become a perfect wife.

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I went to school not because the Maasais'

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women or girls were going to school.

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It's because my mother was denied an education,

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and she constantly reminded me and my siblings that

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she never wanted us to live the life she was living.

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Why did she say that?

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My father worked as a policeman in the city.

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He came home once a year.

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We didn't see him for sometimes even two years.

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And whenever he came home, it was a different case.

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My mother worked hard in the farm

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to grow crops so that we can eat.

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She reared the cows and the goats

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so that she can care for us.

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But when my father came, he would sell the cows,

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he would sell the products we had,

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and he went and drank with his friends in the bars.

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Because my mother was a woman,

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she was not allowed to own any property,

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and by default, everything in my family anyway

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belongs to my father, so he had the right.

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And if my mother ever questioned him,

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he beat her, abused her, and really it was difficult.

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When I went to school, I had a dream.

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I wanted to become a teacher.

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Teachers looked nice.

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They wear nice dresses, high-heeled shoes.

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I found out later that they are uncomfortable, but I admired it.

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(Laughter)

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But most of all, the teacher was just writing on the board --

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not hard work, that's what I thought,

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compared to what I was doing in the farm.

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So I wanted to become a teacher.

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I worked hard in school, but when I was in eighth grade,

0:03:01.026,0:03:03.430
it was a determining factor.

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In our tradition, there is a ceremony

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that girls have to undergo to become women,

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and it's a rite of passage to womanhood.

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And then I was just finishing my eighth grade,

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and that was a transition for me to go to high school.

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This was the crossroad.

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Once I go through this tradition, I was going to become a wife.

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Well, my dream of becoming a teacher will not come to pass.

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So I talked -- I had to come up with a plan

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to figure these things out.

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I talked to my father. I did something that most girls have never done.

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I told my father, "I will only go through this ceremony

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if you let me go back to school."

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The reason why, if I ran away,

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my father will have a stigma, people will be calling him

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the father of that girl who didn't go through the ceremony.

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It was a shameful thing for him to carry the rest of his life.

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So he figured out. "Well," he said, "okay,

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you'll go to school after the ceremony."

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I did. The ceremony happened.

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It's a whole week long of excitement.

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It's a ceremony. People are enjoying it.

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And the day before the actual ceremony happens,

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we were dancing, having excitement,

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and through all the night we did not sleep.

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The actual day came, and we walked out of the house

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that we were dancing in. Yes, we danced and danced.

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We walked out to the courtyard, and there were a bunch of people waiting.

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They were all in a circle.

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And as we danced and danced,

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and we approached this circle of women,

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men, women, children, everybody was there.

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There was a woman sitting in the middle of it,

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and this woman was waiting to hold us.

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I was the first. There were my sisters and a couple of other girls,

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and as I approached her,

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she looked at me, and I sat down.

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And I sat down, and I opened my legs.

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As I opened my leg, another woman came,

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and this woman was carrying a knife.

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And as she carried the knife, she walked toward me

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and she held the clitoris, and she cut it off.

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As you can imagine, I bled. I bled.

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After bleeding for a while, I fainted thereafter.

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It's something that so many girls --

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I'm lucky, I never died -- but many die.

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It's practiced, it's no anesthesia, it's a rusty old knife,

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and it was difficult.

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I was lucky because one, also, my mom did something

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that most women don't do.

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Three days later, after everybody has left the home,

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my mom went and brought a nurse.

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We were taken care of.

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Three weeks later, I was healed, and I was back in high school.

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I was so determined to be a teacher now

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so that I could make a difference in my family.

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Well, while I was in high school, something happened.

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I met a young gentleman from our village

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who had been to the University of Oregon.

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This man was wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, camera,

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white sneakers -- and I'm talking about white sneakers.

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There is something about clothes, I think, and shoes.

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They were sneakers, and this is in a village

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that doesn't even have paved roads. It was quite attractive.

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I told him, "Well, I want to go to where you are,"

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because this man looked very happy, and I admired that.

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And he told me, "Well,

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what do you mean, you want to go?

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Don't you have a husband waiting for you?"

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And I told him, "Don't worry about that part.

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Just tell me how to get there."

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This gentleman, he helped me.

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While I was in high school also, my dad was sick.

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He got a stroke, and he was really, really sick,

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so he really couldn't tell me what to do next.

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But the problem is, my father is not the only father I have.

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Everybody who is my dad's age, male in the community,

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is my father by default --

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my uncles, all of them -- and they dictate what my future is.

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So the news came, I applied to school

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and I was accepted to Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia,

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and I couldn't come without the support of the village,

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because I needed to raise money to buy the air ticket.

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I got a scholarship but I needed to get myself here.

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But I needed the support of the village,

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and here again, when the men heard,

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and the people heard that a woman had gotten an opportunity to go to school,

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they said, "What a lost opportunity.

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This should have been given to a boy. We can't do this."

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So I went back and I had to go back to the tradition.

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There's a belief among our people

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that morning brings good news.

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So I had to come up with something to do with the morning,

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because there's good news in the morning.

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And in the village also, there is one chief, an elder,

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who if he says yes, everybody will follow him.

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So I went to him very early in the morning, as the sun rose.

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The first thing he sees when he opens his door is, it's me.

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"My child, what are you doing here?"

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"Well, Dad, I need help. Can you support me to go to America?"

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I promised him that I would be the best girl,

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I will come back, anything they wanted after that,

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I will do it for them.

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He said, "Well, but I can't do it alone."

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He gave me a list of another 15 men that I went --

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16 more men -- every single morning

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I went and visited them.

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They all came together.

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The village, the women, the men, everybody came together

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to support me to come to get an education.

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I arrived in America. As you can imagine, what did I find?

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I found snow!

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I found Wal-Marts, vacuum cleaners,

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and lots of food in the cafeteria.

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I was in a land of plenty.

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I enjoyed myself, but during that moment while I was here,

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I discovered a lot of things.

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I learned that that ceremony that I went through

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when I was 13 years old, it was called female genital mutilation.

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I learned that it was against the law in Kenya.

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I learned that I did not have to trade part of my body

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to get an education. I had a right.

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And as we speak right now, three million girls

0:09:45.287,0:09:50.628
in Africa are at risk of going through this mutilation.

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I learned that my mom had a right to own property.

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I learned that she did not have to be abused

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because she is a woman.

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Those things made me angry.

0:10:02.222,0:10:04.123
I wanted to do something.

0:10:04.123,0:10:06.692
As I went back, every time I went,

0:10:06.692,0:10:09.660
I found that my neighbors' girls were getting married.

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They were getting mutilated, and here,

0:10:11.734,0:10:15.270
after I graduated from here, I worked at the U.N.,

0:10:15.270,0:10:17.793
I went back to school to get my graduate work,

0:10:17.793,0:10:21.903
the constant cry of these girls was in my face.

0:10:21.903,0:10:24.729
I had to do something.

0:10:24.729,0:10:27.649
As I went back, I started talking to the men,

0:10:27.649,0:10:29.236
to the village, and mothers, and I said,

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"I want to give back the way I had promised you

0:10:31.256,0:10:33.968
that I would come back and help you. What do you need?"

0:10:33.968,0:10:36.086
As I spoke to the women, they told me,

0:10:36.086,0:10:38.062
"You know what we need? We really need a school for girls."

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Because there had not been any school for girls.

0:10:40.818,0:10:42.631
And the reason they wanted the school for girls

0:10:42.631,0:10:46.257
is because when a girl is raped when she's walking to school,

0:10:46.257,0:10:48.465
the mother is blamed for that.

0:10:48.465,0:10:51.877
If she got pregnant before she got married,

0:10:51.877,0:10:54.246
the mother is blamed for that, and she's punished.

0:10:54.246,0:10:55.887
She's beaten.

0:10:55.887,0:10:59.622
They said, "We wanted to put our girls in a safe place."

0:10:59.622,0:11:02.265
As we moved, and I went to talk to the fathers,

0:11:02.265,0:11:04.638
the fathers, of course, you can imagine what they said:

0:11:04.638,0:11:07.041
"We want a school for boys."

0:11:07.041,0:11:10.345
And I said, "Well, there are a couple of men from my village

0:11:10.345,0:11:13.017
who have been out and they have gotten an education.

0:11:13.017,0:11:15.089
Why can't they build a school for boys,

0:11:15.089,0:11:17.386
and I'll build a school for girls?"

0:11:17.386,0:11:20.661
That made sense. And they agreed.

0:11:20.661,0:11:25.320
And I told them, I wanted them to show me a sign of commitment.

0:11:25.320,0:11:30.112
And they did. They donated land where we built the girls' school.

0:11:30.112,0:11:31.571
We have.

0:11:31.571,0:11:34.703
I want you to meet one of the girls in that school.

0:11:34.703,0:11:37.343
Angeline came to apply for the school,

0:11:37.343,0:11:40.943
and she did not meet any criteria that we had.

0:11:40.943,0:11:43.686
She's an orphan. Yes, we could have taken her for that.

0:11:43.686,0:11:46.430
But she was older. She was 12 years old,

0:11:46.430,0:11:49.542
and we were taking girls who were in fourth grade.

0:11:49.542,0:11:51.337
Angeline had been moving from one place --

0:11:51.337,0:11:53.678
because she's an orphan, she has no mother, she has no father --

0:11:53.678,0:11:56.032
moving from one grandmother's house to another one,

0:11:56.032,0:11:59.666
from aunties to aunties. She had no stability in her life.

0:11:59.666,0:12:02.254
And I looked at her, I remember that day,

0:12:02.254,0:12:06.786
and I saw something beyond what I was seeing in Angeline.

0:12:06.786,0:12:09.682
And yes, she was older to be in fourth grade.

0:12:09.682,0:12:12.652
We gave her the opportunity to come to the class.

0:12:12.652,0:12:15.879
Five months later, that is Angeline.

0:12:15.879,0:12:18.645
A transformation had begun in her life.

0:12:18.645,0:12:21.387
Angeline wants to be a pilot so she can fly around the world

0:12:21.387,0:12:23.120
and make a difference.

0:12:23.120,0:12:24.920
She was not the top student when we took her.

0:12:24.920,0:12:27.416
Now she's the best student, not just in our school,

0:12:27.416,0:12:30.565
but in the entire division that we are in.

0:12:30.565,0:12:34.886
That's Sharon. That's five years later.

0:12:34.886,0:12:42.055
That's Evelyn. Five months later, that is the difference that we are making.

0:12:42.055,0:12:45.330
As a new dawn is happening in my school,

0:12:45.330,0:12:47.589
a new beginning is happening.

0:12:47.589,0:12:52.933
As we speak right now, 125 girls will never be mutilated.

0:12:52.933,0:12:57.629
One hundred twenty-five girls will not be married when they're 12 years old.

0:12:57.629,0:13:03.597
One hundred twenty-five girls are creating and achieving their dreams.

0:13:03.597,0:13:05.870
This is the thing that we are doing,

0:13:05.870,0:13:09.197
giving them opportunities where they can rise.

0:13:09.197,0:13:12.852
As we speak right now, women are not being beaten

0:13:12.852,0:13:16.398
because of the revolutions we've started in our community.

0:13:16.398,0:13:24.078
(Applause)

0:13:24.078,0:13:26.913
I want to challenge you today.

0:13:26.913,0:13:29.817
You are listening to me because you are here,

0:13:29.817,0:13:32.261
very optimistic.

0:13:32.261,0:13:35.775
You are somebody who is so passionate.

0:13:35.775,0:13:39.622
You are somebody who wants to see a better world.

0:13:39.622,0:13:44.128
You are somebody who wants to see that war ends, no poverty.

0:13:44.128,0:13:46.877
You are somebody who wants to make a difference.

0:13:46.877,0:13:50.443
You are somebody who wants to make our tomorrow better.

0:13:50.443,0:13:54.221
I want to challenge you today that to be the first,

0:13:54.221,0:13:56.718
because people will follow you.

0:13:56.718,0:13:58.942
Be the first. People will follow you.

0:13:58.942,0:14:04.225
Be bold. Stand up. Be fearless. Be confident.

0:14:04.225,0:14:07.505
Move out, because as you change your world,

0:14:07.505,0:14:09.944
as you change your community,

0:14:09.944,0:14:14.744
as we believe that we are impacting one girl, one family,

0:14:14.744,0:14:18.064
one village, one country at a time.

0:14:18.064,0:14:20.929
We are making a difference, so if you change your world,

0:14:20.929,0:14:22.978
you are going to change your community,

0:14:22.978,0:14:24.770
you are going to change your country,

0:14:24.770,0:14:27.737
and think about that. If you do that, and I do that,

0:14:27.737,0:14:31.337
aren't we going to create a better future for our children,

0:14:31.337,0:14:33.572
for your children, for our grandchildren?

0:14:33.572,0:14:37.777
And we will live in a very peaceful world. Thank you very much.

0:14:37.777,0:14:54.929
(Applause)