WEBVTT 00:00:00.473 --> 00:00:05.081 There's a group of people in Kenya. 00:00:05.081 --> 00:00:09.085 People cross oceans to go see them. 00:00:09.085 --> 00:00:11.119 These people are tall. 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:15.626 They jump high. They wear red. 00:00:15.626 --> 00:00:17.738 And they kill lions. 00:00:17.738 --> 00:00:20.795 You might be wondering, who are these people? 00:00:20.795 --> 00:00:23.389 These are the Maasais. 00:00:23.389 --> 00:00:29.291 And you know what's cool? I'm actually one of them. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:29.291 --> 00:00:33.651 The Maasais, the boys are brought up to be warriors. 00:00:33.651 --> 00:00:36.898 The girls are brought up to be mothers. 00:00:36.898 --> 00:00:39.426 When I was five years old, 00:00:39.426 --> 00:00:41.994 I found out that I was engaged 00:00:41.994 --> 00:00:45.080 to be married as soon as I reached puberty. 00:00:45.080 --> 00:00:48.066 My mother, my grandmother, my aunties, 00:00:48.066 --> 00:00:50.244 they constantly reminded me that 00:00:50.244 --> 00:00:52.964 your husband just passed by. 00:00:52.964 --> 00:00:57.910 (Laughter) Cool, yeah? 00:00:57.910 --> 00:01:01.075 And everything I had to do from that moment 00:01:01.075 --> 00:01:05.706 was to prepare me to be a perfect woman at age 12. 00:01:05.706 --> 00:01:09.283 My day started at 5 in the morning, 00:01:09.283 --> 00:01:11.440 milking the cows, sweeping the house, 00:01:11.440 --> 00:01:15.979 cooking for my siblings, collecting water, firewood. 00:01:15.979 --> 00:01:19.221 I did everything that I needed to do 00:01:19.221 --> 00:01:22.848 to become a perfect wife. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:22.848 --> 00:01:25.912 I went to school not because the Maasais' 00:01:25.912 --> 00:01:28.553 women or girls were going to school. 00:01:28.553 --> 00:01:31.710 It's because my mother was denied an education, 00:01:31.710 --> 00:01:35.179 and she constantly reminded me and my siblings that 00:01:35.179 --> 00:01:39.127 she never wanted us to live the life she was living. 00:01:39.127 --> 00:01:41.656 Why did she say that? 00:01:41.656 --> 00:01:44.984 My father worked as a policeman in the city. 00:01:44.984 --> 00:01:46.614 He came home once a year. 00:01:46.614 --> 00:01:49.971 We didn't see him for sometimes even two years. 00:01:49.971 --> 00:01:53.859 And whenever he came home, it was a different case. 00:01:53.859 --> 00:01:55.864 My mother worked hard in the farm 00:01:55.864 --> 00:01:57.730 to grow crops so that we can eat. 00:01:57.730 --> 00:01:59.833 She reared the cows and the goats 00:01:59.833 --> 00:02:01.848 so that she can care for us. 00:02:01.848 --> 00:02:04.678 But when my father came, he would sell the cows, 00:02:04.678 --> 00:02:07.061 he would sell the products we had, 00:02:07.061 --> 00:02:11.256 and he went and drank with his friends in the bars. 00:02:11.256 --> 00:02:12.649 Because my mother was a woman, 00:02:12.649 --> 00:02:15.650 she was not allowed to own any property, 00:02:15.650 --> 00:02:18.144 and by default, everything in my family anyway 00:02:18.144 --> 00:02:20.816 belongs to my father, so he had the right. 00:02:20.816 --> 00:02:23.105 And if my mother ever questioned him, 00:02:23.105 --> 00:02:29.893 he beat her, abused her, and really it was difficult. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:29.893 --> 00:02:32.899 When I went to school, I had a dream. 00:02:32.899 --> 00:02:35.304 I wanted to become a teacher. 00:02:35.304 --> 00:02:37.110 Teachers looked nice. 00:02:37.110 --> 00:02:39.363 They wear nice dresses, high-heeled shoes. 00:02:39.363 --> 00:02:42.466 I found out later that they are uncomfortable, but I admired it. 00:02:42.466 --> 00:02:45.721 (Laughter) 00:02:45.721 --> 00:02:49.222 But most of all, the teacher was just writing on the board -- 00:02:49.222 --> 00:02:52.296 not hard work, that's what I thought, 00:02:52.296 --> 00:02:55.176 compared to what I was doing in the farm. 00:02:55.176 --> 00:02:57.123 So I wanted to become a teacher. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:57.123 --> 00:03:01.026 I worked hard in school, but when I was in eighth grade, 00:03:01.026 --> 00:03:03.430 it was a determining factor. 00:03:03.430 --> 00:03:06.003 In our tradition, there is a ceremony 00:03:06.003 --> 00:03:08.836 that girls have to undergo to become women, 00:03:08.836 --> 00:03:11.417 and it's a rite of passage to womanhood. 00:03:11.417 --> 00:03:14.985 And then I was just finishing my eighth grade, 00:03:14.985 --> 00:03:17.536 and that was a transition for me to go to high school. 00:03:17.536 --> 00:03:19.117 This was the crossroad. 00:03:19.117 --> 00:03:24.639 Once I go through this tradition, I was going to become a wife. 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:28.881 Well, my dream of becoming a teacher will not come to pass. 00:03:28.881 --> 00:03:31.396 So I talked -- I had to come up with a plan 00:03:31.396 --> 00:03:33.960 to figure these things out. 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:38.096 I talked to my father. I did something that most girls have never done. 00:03:38.096 --> 00:03:41.296 I told my father, "I will only go through this ceremony 00:03:41.296 --> 00:03:43.876 if you let me go back to school." 00:03:43.876 --> 00:03:46.464 The reason why, if I ran away, 00:03:46.464 --> 00:03:49.910 my father will have a stigma, people will be calling him 00:03:49.910 --> 00:03:52.951 the father of that girl who didn't go through the ceremony. 00:03:52.951 --> 00:03:56.970 It was a shameful thing for him to carry the rest of his life. 00:03:56.970 --> 00:03:59.822 So he figured out. "Well," he said, "okay, 00:03:59.822 --> 00:04:03.155 you'll go to school after the ceremony." NOTE Paragraph 00:04:03.155 --> 00:04:05.775 I did. The ceremony happened. 00:04:05.775 --> 00:04:09.356 It's a whole week long of excitement. 00:04:09.356 --> 00:04:11.521 It's a ceremony. People are enjoying it. 00:04:11.521 --> 00:04:14.489 And the day before the actual ceremony happens, 00:04:14.489 --> 00:04:16.977 we were dancing, having excitement, 00:04:16.977 --> 00:04:20.900 and through all the night we did not sleep. 00:04:20.900 --> 00:04:24.230 The actual day came, and we walked out of the house 00:04:24.230 --> 00:04:26.384 that we were dancing in. Yes, we danced and danced. 00:04:26.384 --> 00:04:30.253 We walked out to the courtyard, and there were a bunch of people waiting. 00:04:30.253 --> 00:04:32.864 They were all in a circle. 00:04:32.864 --> 00:04:34.523 And as we danced and danced, 00:04:34.523 --> 00:04:37.368 and we approached this circle of women, 00:04:37.368 --> 00:04:40.519 men, women, children, everybody was there. 00:04:40.519 --> 00:04:43.087 There was a woman sitting in the middle of it, 00:04:43.087 --> 00:04:47.625 and this woman was waiting to hold us. 00:04:47.625 --> 00:04:51.300 I was the first. There were my sisters and a couple of other girls, 00:04:51.300 --> 00:04:54.294 and as I approached her, 00:04:54.294 --> 00:04:57.013 she looked at me, and I sat down. 00:04:57.013 --> 00:05:00.591 And I sat down, and I opened my legs. 00:05:00.591 --> 00:05:04.059 As I opened my leg, another woman came, 00:05:04.059 --> 00:05:07.415 and this woman was carrying a knife. 00:05:07.415 --> 00:05:10.999 And as she carried the knife, she walked toward me 00:05:10.999 --> 00:05:15.388 and she held the clitoris, and she cut it off. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:15.388 --> 00:05:20.651 As you can imagine, I bled. I bled. 00:05:20.651 --> 00:05:25.749 After bleeding for a while, I fainted thereafter. 00:05:25.749 --> 00:05:27.872 It's something that so many girls -- 00:05:27.872 --> 00:05:31.770 I'm lucky, I never died -- but many die. 00:05:31.770 --> 00:05:38.181 It's practiced, it's no anesthesia, it's a rusty old knife, 00:05:38.181 --> 00:05:40.982 and it was difficult. 00:05:40.982 --> 00:05:43.719 I was lucky because one, also, my mom did something 00:05:43.719 --> 00:05:46.716 that most women don't do. 00:05:46.716 --> 00:05:49.543 Three days later, after everybody has left the home, 00:05:49.543 --> 00:05:51.265 my mom went and brought a nurse. 00:05:51.265 --> 00:05:53.119 We were taken care of. 00:05:53.119 --> 00:05:57.712 Three weeks later, I was healed, and I was back in high school. 00:05:57.712 --> 00:06:01.183 I was so determined to be a teacher now 00:06:01.183 --> 00:06:05.183 so that I could make a difference in my family. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:05.183 --> 00:06:08.950 Well, while I was in high school, something happened. 00:06:08.950 --> 00:06:11.564 I met a young gentleman from our village 00:06:11.564 --> 00:06:13.797 who had been to the University of Oregon. 00:06:13.797 --> 00:06:19.673 This man was wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, camera, 00:06:19.673 --> 00:06:22.969 white sneakers -- and I'm talking about white sneakers. 00:06:22.969 --> 00:06:26.896 There is something about clothes, I think, and shoes. 00:06:26.896 --> 00:06:30.359 They were sneakers, and this is in a village 00:06:30.359 --> 00:06:34.429 that doesn't even have paved roads. It was quite attractive. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:34.429 --> 00:06:39.416 I told him, "Well, I want to go to where you are," 00:06:39.416 --> 00:06:43.664 because this man looked very happy, and I admired that. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:43.664 --> 00:06:45.929 And he told me, "Well, 00:06:45.929 --> 00:06:47.063 what do you mean, you want to go? 00:06:47.063 --> 00:06:49.383 Don't you have a husband waiting for you?" NOTE Paragraph 00:06:49.383 --> 00:06:52.188 And I told him, "Don't worry about that part. 00:06:52.188 --> 00:06:55.346 Just tell me how to get there." NOTE Paragraph 00:06:55.346 --> 00:06:57.948 This gentleman, he helped me. 00:06:57.948 --> 00:07:00.795 While I was in high school also, my dad was sick. 00:07:00.795 --> 00:07:04.063 He got a stroke, and he was really, really sick, 00:07:04.063 --> 00:07:07.383 so he really couldn't tell me what to do next. 00:07:07.383 --> 00:07:11.074 But the problem is, my father is not the only father I have. 00:07:11.074 --> 00:07:14.519 Everybody who is my dad's age, male in the community, 00:07:14.519 --> 00:07:16.163 is my father by default -- 00:07:16.163 --> 00:07:20.346 my uncles, all of them -- and they dictate what my future is. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:20.346 --> 00:07:23.479 So the news came, I applied to school 00:07:23.479 --> 00:07:27.711 and I was accepted to Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, 00:07:27.711 --> 00:07:32.151 and I couldn't come without the support of the village, 00:07:32.151 --> 00:07:34.143 because I needed to raise money to buy the air ticket. 00:07:34.143 --> 00:07:37.423 I got a scholarship but I needed to get myself here. 00:07:37.423 --> 00:07:40.111 But I needed the support of the village, 00:07:40.111 --> 00:07:43.693 and here again, when the men heard, 00:07:43.693 --> 00:07:47.770 and the people heard that a woman had gotten an opportunity to go to school, 00:07:47.770 --> 00:07:50.195 they said, "What a lost opportunity. 00:07:50.195 --> 00:07:53.840 This should have been given to a boy. We can't do this." NOTE Paragraph 00:07:53.840 --> 00:07:58.167 So I went back and I had to go back to the tradition. 00:07:58.167 --> 00:08:00.485 There's a belief among our people 00:08:00.485 --> 00:08:03.855 that morning brings good news. 00:08:03.855 --> 00:08:06.717 So I had to come up with something to do with the morning, 00:08:06.717 --> 00:08:09.119 because there's good news in the morning. 00:08:09.119 --> 00:08:13.323 And in the village also, there is one chief, an elder, 00:08:13.323 --> 00:08:16.975 who if he says yes, everybody will follow him. 00:08:16.975 --> 00:08:20.630 So I went to him very early in the morning, as the sun rose. 00:08:20.630 --> 00:08:24.391 The first thing he sees when he opens his door is, it's me. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:24.391 --> 00:08:26.940 "My child, what are you doing here?" NOTE Paragraph 00:08:26.940 --> 00:08:31.215 "Well, Dad, I need help. Can you support me to go to America?" 00:08:31.215 --> 00:08:33.447 I promised him that I would be the best girl, 00:08:33.447 --> 00:08:36.681 I will come back, anything they wanted after that, 00:08:36.681 --> 00:08:38.840 I will do it for them. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:40.934 He said, "Well, but I can't do it alone." 00:08:40.934 --> 00:08:44.481 He gave me a list of another 15 men that I went -- 00:08:44.481 --> 00:08:47.018 16 more men -- every single morning 00:08:47.018 --> 00:08:48.602 I went and visited them. 00:08:48.602 --> 00:08:50.343 They all came together. 00:08:50.343 --> 00:08:53.333 The village, the women, the men, everybody came together 00:08:53.333 --> 00:08:56.652 to support me to come to get an education. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:56.652 --> 00:09:01.415 I arrived in America. As you can imagine, what did I find? 00:09:01.415 --> 00:09:04.624 I found snow! 00:09:04.624 --> 00:09:07.782 I found Wal-Marts, vacuum cleaners, 00:09:07.782 --> 00:09:10.858 and lots of food in the cafeteria. 00:09:10.858 --> 00:09:13.511 I was in a land of plenty. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:13.511 --> 00:09:19.276 I enjoyed myself, but during that moment while I was here, 00:09:19.276 --> 00:09:21.908 I discovered a lot of things. 00:09:21.908 --> 00:09:24.949 I learned that that ceremony that I went through 00:09:24.949 --> 00:09:30.144 when I was 13 years old, it was called female genital mutilation. 00:09:30.144 --> 00:09:33.818 I learned that it was against the law in Kenya. 00:09:33.818 --> 00:09:37.770 I learned that I did not have to trade part of my body 00:09:37.770 --> 00:09:41.848 to get an education. I had a right. 00:09:41.848 --> 00:09:45.287 And as we speak right now, three million girls 00:09:45.287 --> 00:09:50.628 in Africa are at risk of going through this mutilation. 00:09:50.628 --> 00:09:53.803 I learned that my mom had a right to own property. 00:09:53.803 --> 00:09:56.692 I learned that she did not have to be abused 00:09:56.692 --> 00:09:59.135 because she is a woman. 00:09:59.135 --> 00:10:02.222 Those things made me angry. 00:10:02.222 --> 00:10:04.123 I wanted to do something. 00:10:04.123 --> 00:10:06.692 As I went back, every time I went, 00:10:06.692 --> 00:10:09.660 I found that my neighbors' girls were getting married. 00:10:09.660 --> 00:10:11.734 They were getting mutilated, and here, 00:10:11.734 --> 00:10:15.270 after I graduated from here, I worked at the U.N., 00:10:15.270 --> 00:10:17.793 I went back to school to get my graduate work, 00:10:17.793 --> 00:10:21.903 the constant cry of these girls was in my face. 00:10:21.903 --> 00:10:24.729 I had to do something. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:24.729 --> 00:10:27.649 As I went back, I started talking to the men, 00:10:27.649 --> 00:10:29.236 to the village, and mothers, and I said, 00:10:29.236 --> 00:10:31.256 "I want to give back the way I had promised you 00:10:31.256 --> 00:10:33.968 that I would come back and help you. What do you need?" NOTE Paragraph 00:10:33.968 --> 00:10:36.086 As I spoke to the women, they told me, 00:10:36.086 --> 00:10:38.062 "You know what we need? We really need a school for girls." 00:10:38.062 --> 00:10:40.818 Because there had not been any school for girls. 00:10:40.818 --> 00:10:42.631 And the reason they wanted the school for girls 00:10:42.631 --> 00:10:46.257 is because when a girl is raped when she's walking to school, 00:10:46.257 --> 00:10:48.465 the mother is blamed for that. 00:10:48.465 --> 00:10:51.877 If she got pregnant before she got married, 00:10:51.877 --> 00:10:54.246 the mother is blamed for that, and she's punished. 00:10:54.246 --> 00:10:55.887 She's beaten. 00:10:55.887 --> 00:10:59.622 They said, "We wanted to put our girls in a safe place." NOTE Paragraph 00:10:59.622 --> 00:11:02.265 As we moved, and I went to talk to the fathers, 00:11:02.265 --> 00:11:04.638 the fathers, of course, you can imagine what they said: 00:11:04.638 --> 00:11:07.041 "We want a school for boys." NOTE Paragraph 00:11:07.041 --> 00:11:10.345 And I said, "Well, there are a couple of men from my village 00:11:10.345 --> 00:11:13.017 who have been out and they have gotten an education. 00:11:13.017 --> 00:11:15.089 Why can't they build a school for boys, 00:11:15.089 --> 00:11:17.386 and I'll build a school for girls?" 00:11:17.386 --> 00:11:20.661 That made sense. And they agreed. 00:11:20.661 --> 00:11:25.320 And I told them, I wanted them to show me a sign of commitment. 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:30.112 And they did. They donated land where we built the girls' school. 00:11:30.112 --> 00:11:31.571 We have. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:31.571 --> 00:11:34.703 I want you to meet one of the girls in that school. 00:11:34.703 --> 00:11:37.343 Angeline came to apply for the school, 00:11:37.343 --> 00:11:40.943 and she did not meet any criteria that we had. 00:11:40.943 --> 00:11:43.686 She's an orphan. Yes, we could have taken her for that. 00:11:43.686 --> 00:11:46.430 But she was older. She was 12 years old, 00:11:46.430 --> 00:11:49.542 and we were taking girls who were in fourth grade. 00:11:49.542 --> 00:11:51.337 Angeline had been moving from one place -- 00:11:51.337 --> 00:11:53.678 because she's an orphan, she has no mother, she has no father -- 00:11:53.678 --> 00:11:56.032 moving from one grandmother's house to another one, 00:11:56.032 --> 00:11:59.666 from aunties to aunties. She had no stability in her life. 00:11:59.666 --> 00:12:02.254 And I looked at her, I remember that day, 00:12:02.254 --> 00:12:06.786 and I saw something beyond what I was seeing in Angeline. 00:12:06.786 --> 00:12:09.682 And yes, she was older to be in fourth grade. 00:12:09.682 --> 00:12:12.652 We gave her the opportunity to come to the class. 00:12:12.652 --> 00:12:15.879 Five months later, that is Angeline. 00:12:15.879 --> 00:12:18.645 A transformation had begun in her life. 00:12:18.645 --> 00:12:21.387 Angeline wants to be a pilot so she can fly around the world 00:12:21.387 --> 00:12:23.120 and make a difference. 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:24.920 She was not the top student when we took her. 00:12:24.920 --> 00:12:27.416 Now she's the best student, not just in our school, 00:12:27.416 --> 00:12:30.565 but in the entire division that we are in. 00:12:30.565 --> 00:12:34.886 That's Sharon. That's five years later. 00:12:34.886 --> 00:12:42.055 That's Evelyn. Five months later, that is the difference that we are making. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:42.055 --> 00:12:45.330 As a new dawn is happening in my school, 00:12:45.330 --> 00:12:47.589 a new beginning is happening. 00:12:47.589 --> 00:12:52.933 As we speak right now, 125 girls will never be mutilated. 00:12:52.933 --> 00:12:57.629 One hundred twenty-five girls will not be married when they're 12 years old. 00:12:57.629 --> 00:13:03.597 One hundred twenty-five girls are creating and achieving their dreams. 00:13:03.597 --> 00:13:05.870 This is the thing that we are doing, 00:13:05.870 --> 00:13:09.197 giving them opportunities where they can rise. 00:13:09.197 --> 00:13:12.852 As we speak right now, women are not being beaten 00:13:12.852 --> 00:13:16.398 because of the revolutions we've started in our community. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:16.398 --> 00:13:24.078 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:13:24.078 --> 00:13:26.913 I want to challenge you today. 00:13:26.913 --> 00:13:29.817 You are listening to me because you are here, 00:13:29.817 --> 00:13:32.261 very optimistic. 00:13:32.261 --> 00:13:35.775 You are somebody who is so passionate. 00:13:35.775 --> 00:13:39.622 You are somebody who wants to see a better world. 00:13:39.622 --> 00:13:44.128 You are somebody who wants to see that war ends, no poverty. 00:13:44.128 --> 00:13:46.877 You are somebody who wants to make a difference. 00:13:46.877 --> 00:13:50.443 You are somebody who wants to make our tomorrow better. 00:13:50.443 --> 00:13:54.221 I want to challenge you today that to be the first, 00:13:54.221 --> 00:13:56.718 because people will follow you. 00:13:56.718 --> 00:13:58.942 Be the first. People will follow you. 00:13:58.942 --> 00:14:04.225 Be bold. Stand up. Be fearless. Be confident. 00:14:04.225 --> 00:14:07.505 Move out, because as you change your world, 00:14:07.505 --> 00:14:09.944 as you change your community, 00:14:09.944 --> 00:14:14.744 as we believe that we are impacting one girl, one family, 00:14:14.744 --> 00:14:18.064 one village, one country at a time. 00:14:18.064 --> 00:14:20.929 We are making a difference, so if you change your world, 00:14:20.929 --> 00:14:22.978 you are going to change your community, 00:14:22.978 --> 00:14:24.770 you are going to change your country, 00:14:24.770 --> 00:14:27.737 and think about that. If you do that, and I do that, 00:14:27.737 --> 00:14:31.337 aren't we going to create a better future for our children, 00:14:31.337 --> 00:14:33.572 for your children, for our grandchildren? 00:14:33.572 --> 00:14:37.777 And we will live in a very peaceful world. Thank you very much. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:37.777 --> 00:14:54.929 (Applause)