Why I fight for the education of refugee girls like me Mary Maker
We do not choose where to be born.
We do not choose who our parents are.
But we do choose how we are going
to live our lives.
I did not choose to be born
in South Sudan,
a country rife with conflict.
I did not choose my name –
Nyiriak,
which means “war.”
I’ve always rejected it
and all the legacy it was born into.
I choose to be called Mary.
As a teacher, I’ve stood
in front of 120 students,
so this stage does not intimidate me.
My students come from war-torn countries.
They’re so different from each other,
but they have one thing in common:
they fled their homes
in order to stay alive.
Some of them belong to parents
back home in South Sudan
who are killing each other
because they belong to a different tribe
or they have a different belief.
Others come from other African countries
devastated by war.
But when they enter my class,
they make friends,
they walk home together,
they do their homework together.
There is no hatred allowed in my class.
My story is like that
of so many other refugees.
The war came when I was still a baby.
And my father,
who had been absent
in most of my early childhood,
was doing what other men were doing:
fighting for the country.
He had two wives and many children.
My mother was his second wife,
married to him at the age of 16.
This is simply because my mother
came from a poor background,
and she had no choice.
My father, on the other hand, was rich.
He had many cows.
Gunshots were the order of the day.
My community was constantly under attack.
Communities would fight each other
as they took water along the Nile.
But that was not all.
Planes would drop the spinning
and terrifying bombs
that chopped off people’s limbs.
But the most terrifying thing
for every single parent
was to see their children being abducted
and turned into young soldiers.
My mother dug a trench
that soon became our home.
But yet, we did not feel protected.
She had to flee in search
of a safe place for us.
I was four years old,
and my younger sister was two.
We joined a huge mass of people,
and together we walked
for many agonizing days
in search of a secure place.
But we could barely rest
before we were attacked again.
I remember my mother was pregnant,
when she would take turns
to carry me and my younger sister.
We finally made it across
the Kenyan border, yes.
But that was the longest journey
that I have ever had in my whole life.
My feet were raw with blisters.
To our surprise,
we found other family members
who had fled into the camp earlier on,
where you all are today,
the Kakuma camp.
Now, I want you all to be very quiet
just for a moment.
Do you hear that?
The sound of silence.
No gunshots.
Peace, at last.
That was my first memory of this camp.
When you move from a war zone
and come to a secure place like Kakuma,
you’ve really gone far.
I only stayed in the camp
for three years, though.
My father, who had been absent
in most of my early childhood,
came back into my life.
And he organized for me
to move with my uncle
to our family in Nakuru.
There, I found my father’s first wife,
my half sisters and my half brothers.
I got enrolled in school.
I remember my first day in school –
I could sing and laugh again –
and my first set of school
uniforms, you bet.
It was amazing.
But then I came to realize
that my uncle did not find it fit
for me to go to school,
simply because I was a girl.
My half brothers were his first priority.
He would say, “Educating a girl
is a waste of time.”
And for that reason, I missed
many days of school,
because the fees were not paid.
My father stepped in
and organized for me
to go to boarding school.
I remember the faith that he put in me
over the couple of years to come.
He would say, “Education is an animal
that you have to overcome.
With an education, you can survive.
Education shall be your first husband.”
And with these words came in
his first big investment.
I felt lucky!
But I was missing something:
my mother.
My mother had been left
behind in the camp,
and I had not seen her since I left it.
Six years without seeing her
was really long.
I was alone,
in school,
when I heard of her death.
I’ve seen many people back in South Sudan
lose their lives.
I’ve heard from neighbors
lose their sons, their husbands,
their children.
But I never thought that that
would ever come into my life.
A month earlier, my stepmother,
who had been so good to me
back in Nakuru, died first.
Then I came to realize that
after giving birth to four girls,
my mother had finally
given birth to something
that could have made her
be accepted into the community –
a baby boy,
my baby brother.
But he, too,
joined the list of the dead.
The most hurting part for me
was the fact that I wasn’t able
to attend my mother’s burial.
I wasn’t allowed.
They said her family did not find it fit
for her children, who are all girls,
to attend her burial,
simply because we were girls.
They would lament to me and say,
“We are sorry, Mary, for your loss.
We are sorry that your parents
never left behind any children.”
And I would wonder:
What are we?
Are we not children?
In the mentality of my community,
only the boy child counted.
And for that reason,
I knew this was the end of me.
But I was the eldest girl.
I had to take care of my siblings.
I had to ensure they went to school.
I was 13 years old.
How could I have made that happen?
I came back to the camp
to take care of my siblings.
I’ve never felt so stuck.
But then, one of my aunts, Auntie Okoi,
decided to take my sisters.
My father sent me money from Juba
for me to go back to school.
Boarding school was heaven,
but it was also so hard.
I remember during the visiting days
when parents would come to school,
and my father would miss.
But when he did come,
he repeated the same faith in me.
This time he would say,
“Mary, you cannot go astray,
because you are the future
of your siblings.”
But then, in 2012,
life took away the only thing
that I was clinging on.
My father died.
My grades in school started to collapse,
and when I sat for my final
high school exams in 2015,
I was devastated to receive a C grade.
OK, I keep telling students in my class,
“It’s not about the A’s;
it’s about doing your best.”
That was not my best.
I was determined.
I wanted to go back and try again.
But my parents were gone.
I had no one to take care of me,
and I had no one to pay that fee.
I felt so hopeless.
But then, one of my best friends,
a beautiful Kenyan lady, Esther Kaecha,
called me during this devastating moment,
and she was like, “Mary,
you have a strong will.
And I have a plan,
and it’s going to work.”
OK, when you’re in those devastating
moments, you accept anything, right?
So the plan was, she organized
some travel money
for us to travel to
Anester Victory Girls High School.
I remember that day so well.
It was raining when we entered
the principal’s office.
We were shaking like two chickens
that had been rained on,
and we looked at him.
He was asking, “What do you want?”
And we looked at him with the cat face.
“We just want to go back to school.”
Well, believe it or not,
he not only paid our school fees
but also our uniform
and pocket money for food.
Clap for him.
(Applause)
When I finished my high school career,
I became the head girl.
And when I sat for the KCSE
for a second time,
I was able to receive a B minus. Clap.
(Applause)
Thank you.
So I really want to say thank you
to Anester Victory, Mr. Gatimu
and the whole Anester fraternity
for giving me that chance.
From time to time,
members of my family will insist
that my sister and I should get married
so that somebody will take care of us.
They will say,
“We have a man for you.”
I really hate the fact that people
took us as property rather than children.
Sometimes they will jokingly say,
“You are going to lose your market value
the more educated you become.”
But the truth is,
an educated woman is feared
in my community.
But I told them, this is not what I want.
I don’t want to get kids at 16
like my mother did.
This is not my life.
Even though my sisters
and I are suffering,
there’s no way we are
heading in that direction.
I refuse to repeat history.
Educating a girl will create
equal and stable societies.
And educated refugees will be the hope
of rebuilding their countries someday.
Girls and women have
a part to play in this
just as much as men.
Well, we have men in my family
that encourage me to move on:
my half brothers and also my half sisters.
When I finished my high school career,
I moved my sisters to Nairobi,
where they live with my stepsister.
They live 17 people in a house.
But don’t pity us.
The most important thing
is that they all get a decent education.
The winners of today
are the losers of yesterday,
but who never gave up.
And that is who we are,
my sisters and I.
And I’m so proud of that.
My biggest investment in life –
(Applause)
is the education of my sisters.
Education creates an equal and fair chance
for everyone to make it.
I personally believe education
is not all about the syllabus.
It’s about friendship.
It’s about discovering our talents.
It’s about discovering our destiny.
I will, for example, not forget
the joy that I had
when I first had singing
lessons in school,
which is still a passion of mine.
But I wouldn’t have gotten that
anywhere else.
As a teacher, I see
my classroom as a laboratory
that not only generates
skills and knowledge
but also understanding and hope.
Let’s take a tree.
A tree may have its branches cut,
but give it water, and it will
grow new branches.
For the child of war,
an education can turn their tears of loss
into a passion for peace.
And for that reason, I refuse to give up
on a single student in my class.
(Applause)
Education heals.
The school environment
gives you a focus to focus ahead.
Let’s take it this way:
when you’re busy solving
mathematical equations,
and you are memorizing poetry,
you forget the violence
that you witnessed back home.
And that is the power of education.
It creates this place for peace.
Kakuma is teeming with learners.
Over 85,000 students
are enrolled in schools here,
which makes up 40 percent
of the refugee population.
It includes children who lost years
of education because of the war back home.
And I want to ask you a question:
If education is about
building a generation of hope,
why are there 120 students
packed in my classroom?
Why is it that only six percent
of the primary school students
are making it to high school,
simply because we do not have
enough places for them?
And why is it that only one percent
of the secondary school graduates
are making it to university?
I began by saying that I am a teacher.
But once again, I have become a student.
In March, I moved to Rwanda
on a scholarship program
called “Bridge2Rwanda.”
It prepares scholars for universities.
They are able to get a chance to compete
for universities abroad.
I am now having teachers
telling me what to do,
instead of the other way round.
People are once again investing in me.
So I want to ask you all
to invest in young refugees.
Think of the tree
that we mentioned earlier.
We are the generation to plant it,
so that the next generation can water it,
and the one that follows
will enjoy the shade.
They will reap the benefits.
And the greatest benefit of them all
is an education that will last.
Thank you.
(Applause)