For yet another year, Harambee ONGD awards its prize to the Promotion and Equality of African Women. The 20-year-old project has chosen the Kenyan scientist Florence Oloo as the winner for this XIV edition that was held this Wednesday in Madrid. She is Professor of Chemical Sciences at the Technical University of Kenya and Director of Academic and Quality Assurance at the same university.
Dr. Oloo has participated together with the president of the African association, Antonio Hernández Deus, in a press conference prior to the award ceremony, in which both have shown their willingness to help and promote the projects initiated and developed in Africa with the focus on women. In addition, Hernández Deus has stressed that the Harambee ONGD wants to “show deep-rooted knowledge of Africa and women”. In her speech, Oloo highlighted the importance of helping these women start their businesses: “The program available is very short, but the results are immediate.”
Thanks to him, women “acquire that dignity and improve their self-esteem as African women”, and despite the fact that the resources are cases, “they get the strength to carry on with their businesses”. “You have to help them see that dignity is very important.” And it is that with little money they can start their businesses, improve their self-esteem and their desire to want to “share with their families” that income that they acquired thanks to their work and effort.
The objective is to help overcome ancestral, ethical and economic barriers, giving priority to the education and training of all of them to motivate them to build a society in which business models grow so that they can finance themselves. In addition, the doctor assured that “before the course, none of these women had businesses and they mainly depended on her husbands or partners for money. She now runs her own business.”
Funding helps African women
In Spain, the Day of Women and Girls in Science is celebrated every February 11. Throughout the week campaigns are launched to make it easier for women to start their studies with the aim of overcoming the gap that still exists. Oloo stressed during the meeting that she herself had to “break the glass ceiling”, being the first woman to start researching Chemistry in Africa and the first woman to convene specialists from different countries on her continent to introduce regulatory frameworks that respect the dignity of people.
Currently, he is dedicated to putting clinical trials into practice, many related to diseases such as malaria and Covid-19. However, Oloo has assured that her passion “is to work for the women who live in rural areas of Kenya.” Her research has focused on a place called Kanyawegi. There she works from the Jakana Study Center and offers empowerment programs to girls and women between the ages of 18 and 30 to improve their self-esteem, confidence and allow them to initiate and promote socioeconomic change within their communities.
Regarding the immigration of women from Africa, the Kenyan doctor has stated that she is “very sorry that women leave their communities” and has ruled that if “governments in other countries improve the standard of living, women do not have to emigrate”, despite the fact that the future that awaits them in Europe is “very hard”. However, she gives “thanks to the help that Harambee provides by raising the funds so that we can help us in Africa to come up with solutions that can help people there and they don’t have to leave.” The doctor has commented that “women who emigrate to other countries feel very alone”, and therefore she calls on European organizations to receive her support. A whole pioneer.
