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 Ms Tabitha (middle) being helped by the Columbia Ambassador to Ghana, Mrs Claudia Q. Torbay (left), and Mr Carl Richards, Director MEF, to wear her cloak
Ms Tabitha (middle) being helped by the Columbia Ambassador to Ghana, Mrs Claudia Q. Torbay (left), and Mr Carl Richards, Director MEF, to wear her cloak

Two women achievers honoured for roles to project image of womanhood

Two female achievers have been honoured for the various roles they have played to project the image of womanhood in their respective countries and on the African continent and beyond.

A gender activist, Ms Leymah Roberta Gbowee, a Liberian, was honoured with the “Peace in Africa” award for being instrumental in ending the 14-year civil war in Liberia.

Ms Tabitha Mukami Muigai Karanja, a Kenyan businesswoman, entrepreneur and industrialist, was also honoured with the “Entrepreneurial Excellence in Africa” award. She is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Keroche Breweries, the first non-multinational brewery company in Kenya. 

The Lifetime Africa Achievement Prize 2016 was organised recently by the Millennium Excellence Foundation (MEF) in Accra, where the two women, alongside eight men, were recognised for their contributions to developments on the African continent.

Ms Leymah Roberta Gbowee

In an interview before receiving her award, Ms Gbowee called on the government of Ghana to ensure that it implemented the law on domestic violence to the letter to protect women in the country.

According to her, Ghana was lucky to have a law on domestic violence but it was not enough to only have the law on paper but rather it should be implemented to serve as a check on the abuse of the vulnerable group in society.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2011, Ms Gbowee is best known for leading a non-violent movement that brought together Christian and Muslim women to play a pivotal role in ending the devastating war in her country.

Her role in the struggle for peace for Liberia is said to have paved the way for the election of Africa’s first female Head of State, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

 Ms Leymah Gbowee (right) receiving her award from Mrs Jane Attorn, a Director of the MEF Pictures: SAMUEL TEI-ADANO

DV laws in Africa

A founder member and Liberia’s Coordinator of the Women in Peace-building Network (WIPNET) of the West Africa Network for Peace-building (WANET), Ms Gbowee said most African countries did not have laws which protected its women and therefore commended Ghana for coming up with such a brilliant law.

She said no country could be successful if there was violence at home and therefore called for the re-orientation of children to know that violence was not a norm, especially for the boy-child, to be socialised to know that “a real man will never hit a woman” and that “only cowards do that”.

 According to her, women had less self-esteem and value when they were abused, saying that until a country was able to deal with gender-based violence, it would be leaving behind a critical mass of its people who would not develop.

She said the time had come to partner men in the fight against gender-based violence, stressing that involving more men would help in solving the problem.

Fighting for peace

 Born on February 1, 1972, Ms Gbowee is the founder of Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, which is a coalition of Christian and Muslim women.

In June 2003, she led almost 200 women of the organisation to Ghana, during a meeting for peace negotiations in Accra, attended by rebel groups, political parties, and civil society leaders and senior officials of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to impress on the then President Charles Taylor and rebel warlords from Liberia to ensure that they brokered peace.

They formed a human barricade to prevent former President Taylor’s representatives at the peace-talks and the rebels from leaving the meeting hall for food or for any other reason until they reached an agreement.

Due to pressures from the women and from other quarters, former President Taylor resigned from the presidency within weeks of their action in Accra and a peace treaty mandating a transitional government was signed.

The Liberian war ended officially later, with the signing of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement on August 18, 2003.

Ms Tabitha Mukami Muigai Karanja

Ms Karanja also called for more women to be empowered economically, saying that this would help reduce the spate of gender-based violence across the African continent and beyond.

“If women have something to do, it will help solve a lot of problems, that is if they do not have to rely on men for their daily needs,” she said.

Ms Karanja’s company, Keroche, accounts for 20 per cent of Kenya's beer consumption, as of October 2012. 

She is described as one of Kenya’s leading entrepreneurs, a remarkable trailblazer and an example of a woman determined to succeed against all odds.

Her career

Beginning in 1997, Ms Karanja and her husband, Mr Joseph Karanja, started making fortified wine, targetting the lower end of the market. In 2007, when the government enacted heavy taxes on locally made wines, her product was priced out of the market. 

She switched to manufacturing ready-to-drink gin and vodka, which her state-of-the-art factory still makes today. 

In 2008, she added beer to her repertoire of alcoholic drinks, beginning with a brand called "Summit". In 2013, the factory began to increase beer production from 60,000 bottles per day to 600,000 bottles per day.

In 2010, she was honoured in Kenya by former President Mwai Kibaki with the accolade “the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear”.

For the past 18 years, she has battled against monopolies, high taxations, industry sceptics and other challenges to create a Kenyan business success story that is internationally admired.

Economic backbone

She said when given the needed push and exposure, women would be an asset to every country, as they were the economic backbone to national economies.

Working in a male-dominated area in her career, Ms Karanja said “when you become an entrepreneur, you do not see man or woman” but rather how to make your business work.

She called on women, especially young women who want to venture into entrepreneurship, not to feel intimidated by the male dominance, saying “in business there is nothing like man or woman”.

She said her challenge was to break a monopoly that had been in existence in her country for 80 years, but with determination and perseverance, she was able to surmount them.

Presently, she has a foundation which nurtures young entrepreneurs, saying that although her foundation supported all youth, she also used it to inspire more women to become economically skilfull.

 

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