Madaraka Day Reflections
Today we celebrate 59 years of freedom and remember Kenya’s successful reclamation of autonomy and self-rule after 43 years as a British colony. Happy Madaraka Day, Kenya!
As an outside organization providing financial resources and oversight, our US partners care deeply about avoiding the same patterns of white supremacy and colonialist-like behavior that led to the wrongful occupation of Kenyan land and rule over the people there.
Pictured left to right: Christine Lemiso, Administrator; Tia McNelly, Executive Director; Krista Blalock, President and Co-Founder; Irine Sereyian, Social Worker
We believe in the Kenyan people and their complete ability to continue the process of healing from oppression and count it a great privilege to be given a seat at the table to collaborate in the effort to do so.
This is why we don’t have foreign staff living and working full time in Kenya. This is why our fieldwork is always conducted by our hyper-local staff based in Kilgoris, a rural town in Narok county. This is why high-level decision-making about programs, methods, and strategy is always in the hands of our Kenyan Board of Directors.
Now, that’s not to say we always get it right. No level of cultural immersion for any amount of time will ever give us the same nuanced understanding or shared experience of the Kenyan people. We will simply never be “one of them.” With that in mind, we recognize that navigating the inherent power dynamics that come with one partner having money or any other resource to share and the other depending on their sharing of those resources for survival is potential fuel for subconscious toxic superiority.
We want to work continually to dismantle every hint of control and manipulation that could stifle the Love that compels us to continue moving forward together. Furthermore, we recognize and celebrate that it is only by the work of the Holy Spirit in us as individuals that this is possible. However, as white Americans living in 2022, we will always battle to suppress a subconscious attitude of superiority, no matter how hard we work to overcome it. Our prayer is that with each generation, this evil pattern will cease.
With all of that said and in light of our vision for an end to the teen pregnancy crisis, as we celebrate Kenya’s independence and self-rule today, we also take time to evaluate how far we still have to go in rural Kenya, particularly with regard to the idea of autonomy for women and girls. The continued practice of forced marriage in exchange for a dowry, forced FGM, forced abortion, forced sex acts, forced labor, or any other use of force or coercion by threat or intimidation is perpetuating the same master-to-slave mindset that the Kenyan people fought so hard to overcome. It is an unfortunate and condemnable reality that these are learned patterns of behavior leftover from British rule that continues a cycle of generational trauma and results in poverty and corruption.
Our prayer today is that as one humanity in pursuit of true freedom for ALL, we may each remain humble, alert, and motivated by Love above all, always. May we put the interests of others above our own, care for the hurting when it’s inconvenient or costs us much, and restore hope for those who are held by the grip of despair.
We wait with expectation for a day when all are truly free, but as is the Kenyan way, some things are reserved for face-to-face, so until that day when we see Jesus face-to-face, we press on with enduring Hope.
Written by Tia McNelly
Executive Director | Flourish Kenya
tia@flourishkenya.org
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