Feminists Around the World: Christine Kandie

Today we're highlighting the work of indigenous and disability activist Christine Kandie.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
When ever told your prediction of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And today for our activists around the world, we are
continuing to celebrate the disability activists around the world by
celebrating the works of Christine Candia or sometimes Candy. I
think she switches up to help us out, to help
the those who may not know how to pronounce things out,
So thank you for that. But she is a part

(00:39):
of the Indoor Riights community, which is a part of
the ancestral land surrounding Lake Bogoriea in Kenya, And like
many of the others we have featured, Candia is an
advocate and an activist in so many different ways. She's
been working for the rights and protections for the indigenous community,
the disabled community, and the women in her country and
her Indigenous people group, as well as working for like

(01:02):
against climate change. There's so many things that she's doing obviously,
and we already know when it comes to like the
indigenous people, they are intersectional. They are kind of the
definition of intersectional. So this is one of those people
that there's so much to her activism that we might
not cover everything, but we kind of are focusing on
her organization and some of the things that she has

(01:24):
been awarded for as well as some of the things
that needs attention today. So here's more information about her work.
And this is a little bit from Voice dot Global.
They say, quote Christine is a mother, an accountant, a
peace ambassador, an indigenous disabled woman leader in the Indo
rised Indigenous community of Kenya. Over time, she has grown
to be a strong human rights defender, advocating for the

(01:46):
rights of the indoor rized community, with a special focus
on the rights of Indigenous women and persons with disabilities,
both at local, traditional, regional and international levels. So she
has been a fierce advocate for peace, people and community
since childhood. She actually talked about her own childhood experiences
and how the views of her community pushed her to

(02:07):
where she is today. In an interview with Minority Writes Group.
She says, quote, I remember a time, at an early
tender age, when my father's daughters were to be married off.
For us to be married, we had to be cut,
and my father had cautiously asked me about my personal
opinion on that matter. Should I go for the cut
like my sisters? While I was responding to him. Some
of my sisters laughed at me and said, surely, Christine,

(02:29):
it is more obvious for you to stay back at
home because nobody could marry you. For them, nobody would
marry me since my physical disability could not attract any
man from marriage. For me to avoid feeling ashamed and humiliated,
the advised that I stay at home for sure. This
prompted my father to consider taking me to live with
relatives who had a home closer to my school. I

(02:50):
ended up moving in with them, and for this reason
I continued with my education. So as an adult, she's
been able to navigate through activist network by speaking up
for the rights of her Indigenous community as well as
those who are disabled. Within the community, women are not
held in high regard and oftentimes women are not given
the same opportunities when it comes to education and employment

(03:13):
and even more and for Candia, a disabled woman, it
would have been more difficult had it not been for
her father. So there's this like like silver lining and
all of the things that she went through as a
child that she was able to get her education as
well as not becaut but able to move on even
though so many people discriminated against her. So it's one
of those things, it's like, okay, good, but all man,

(03:36):
why we all can feel that right? And she's been
working with the endo RIS Indigenous Women Empowerment Network, which
she helped found in twenty sixteen. She has been the
executive director and team leaders since then on. The organization
is a women led organization that has worked to advocate
for the rights of women and young girls and others
with disabilities in the Indo rights community. And here's a

(04:00):
more information about them and what they do from their site.
They say quote. Through training and income generating activities, EWEN
ewe N has facilitated women groups to engage in soapmaking
and acro ecological activities e g. Establishments of tree nurseries
for PWDs or people with disabilities and kitchen gardens for
improved livelihoods. The organization advocated for access to clean water

(04:23):
through promotion of treatment of river water to remove fluoride
and negotiated for drilling of a borehole by Lake Burgoria spa.
EWEN successfully advocated for the allocation for resources to women
by the County government of Barringo, where the government adopted
a sixty thirty ration and resource allocation. As a result
of awen's efforts, sixty percent of the resources were allocated

(04:45):
to the bursary, out of which six point six percent
has been earmarked for PWDs, thirty percent for development, five
percent administration, and five percent to issuance of PPEs during
COVID nineteen, which we're going to talk a little more about.
In addition, we have grated PWDs in community groups as
so as to mainstream their issues and local development. Uh

(05:06):
So there's a lot that they're working on. They're giving
specific numbers, but they have really like hands on community
classes for people to be able to earn livings and
be able to live for themselves. So it's amazing. In
side note Annie, because we know we love these types
of things. They celebrated World b Day, which is a
summit for the indigenous communities, which is amazing. So they

(05:28):
were coming together, has some different communities come through and
work in celebration of the work of bees. Yay, Yes, we.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Need to do a Queen Bee episode like the actual queen.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
You know, we need to. We need to have our
entomologists back.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
On immigrats entomologists.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yes, but yes, we love bees. I just thought that
was a que side note. So Candia has been a
force speaking around the world about the need for more
advocacy work for disabled and indigenous communities, and as we

(06:08):
talked about earlier, they've been doing some work during COVID
nineteen and with that the spread of COVID nineteen, the
communities face new challenges that they had to confront and
in the same interview she had with Minority Rights Group,
she talked about some of those issues because it hit
them pretty hard, she says. Persons living with disabilities within
the Indo rights community and Kenya are facing several challenges

(06:30):
which have minimally, if at all, been addressed by the authorities.
The public awareness measures to prevent the spread of COVID
nineteen have been less considerate to the needs of PWDs
in my community along with other Indigenous and minority communities
of Kenya's Beringo County. The aspects of social distancing is
unfavorable to persons who need close support for their daily lives,

(06:50):
such as the blind and those who require wheelchair support.
Access to healthcare services for the PWDs has also been
largely affected as a result of most health facilities now
focusing on preparedness for COVID nineteen. Access to food and
various social needs are also paralyzed since Marcus and any
forms of social gathering have been banned as a way

(07:11):
of combating the spread of coronavirus. So she went in
on how they have been neglected, how they've really been
affected and obviously this impact is even bigger because she
speaks about how it has affected their environmental area as
well as the farm life. They have lost a lot
just because they don't have access to help. They don't
have access to being able to go out and do

(07:33):
things freely and also again support when they need it.
She implored the government and leaders to acknowledge the effects
and to put into action better ways in protecting and
helping the already vulnerable communities. She continues by challenging them
with this. She says the national and county government as
well as other well wishers should support pwd's by providing

(07:55):
them with masks and food. This would ensure that they
do not have to move aroud around in order to
access basic needs. This will allow them to access medical
attention to sustain their livelihood without being exposed to the
risk of contracted COVID nineteen. In the situation of a
person with a disability diagnosed with COVID nineteen, they should
also be offered a special quarantine that also accommodates their

(08:17):
underlying conditions. She goes on and says, the health and
human rights of Indigenous people living with disabilities can no
longer go ignored. The challenges we face, including isolation from
the development agenda, existed long before COVID nineteen entered our lives. However,
this virus is making the discrimination we face daily even clearer.
It is time to treat us as equals and with

(08:39):
the respect we deserve, which is if we should be
common knowledge. Like I kind of scoff because I'm like, yes,
how is this not an automatic? And she definitely laid
that out for the community, And I think she got
little assistance, but not a lot. Let's be honest, just

(09:00):
like any other advocacy work when we see it, they
did it because it did not exist, and that's what
she continued to do. She did it. She filled that
space and trying to protect her community, especially through her organization,
and a simple ass like getting masks should not have
to be a plea right. But also with that, you know,
she talked about it a little bit of how this

(09:21):
is even more but already they were losing lands, they
were being evicted from their home. They are being pushed
out by companies trying to harm the lands by taking
from the resources. So so much, they're doing so much.
And with that, she did an interview with Atsmuth's World
Foundation podcast Connecting the Dots, and she said this about

(09:43):
her organization and her work. In our work as an organization,
we try to look back. When we look back, we
identify those groups that are struggling to catch up with
the rest of the Indigenous movement. So when I look back,
I see an Indigenous person. When I look back, I
see a woman, I see a girl child who is
unable to go to school. This is exactly what we do.

(10:03):
We help them catch up with the rest the Indigenous
movement and Indigenous practices. Is not about me, It's about us.
And when I say us, everyone is on board. So
she is truly out there speaking and really bringing attention
to her work, to her community, to those with disabilities
and how they are neglected, especially those in indigenous communities.

(10:25):
So we already know, we already know how they are
so impacted and often left out when there are crisis
involved in things like COVID nineteen. And yeah, she has
been awarded for her hard work with or is like
being named the twenty eighteen Kenyan Human Rights Offender. In
twenty twenty one, she also also given the National Gender

(10:46):
Inequality Commission Award, So she's she's definitely being recognized. But
of course she's pushing and probably could care less about baccalage.
She wants attention and she wants change, and we're here.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
For that, always, always, always, and as always, listeners, please
let us know if you have any suggestions for this
segment or any other things. You can email us at
Hello at stuff Whenever Told You dot com. You can
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We're also on YouTube and we have a book we

(11:19):
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your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
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