Coast Association for Persons Living With Disability executive director Hamisa Zaja has departed to Washington DC, in the US, for an international award.
Zaja is one of four women in the world nominated for the Women Building Peace Award 2023 by the US Institute of Peace (USIP) for her work in empowering youth, women and persons living with disability.
USIP is a national, nonpartisan, independent institute, founded by US Congress and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible.
The other three women are from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria and Haiti.
The Mombasa based lobbyist who hails from Majengo in Mvita subcounty has been instrumental in fighting for the rights of the marginalized especially persons living with disabilities in Mombasa county.
Majengo is a cosmopolitan area with so many urban challenges. It hosts people from so many different backgrounds and religions.
“It’s a place where conflict cannot miss,” Zaja said at the at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa before her departure. She further dedicated the award to Kenyan peace-builders, women and especially persons with disability.
He work dates back to 2005, when she started her peace-building venture.
“My work goes direct to empowerment. Tangible income generating projects that enhance people’s lives,” she said.
She helped build a resource centre in Majengo that annually churns out more than 1,500 youth, women and persons living with disability with empowerment.
“They come out with different life skills that focus on building their livelihoods,” Zaja said.
In 2022, Lely Mwanaidi, a beneficiary, walked out of the resource centre with a sewing machine which she used to start her own business after acquiring dress-making skills at the Majengo Resource Centre.
Zaja said she focuses on transforming people from one stage of being less productive to another of being a valuable person in society.
“A person of value, is focused and would always make and maintain peace. Conflict comes when people have lost hope. But I give hope for a better future to the people,” she said.
On Saturday, she boarded a Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi from the Moi International Airport in Mombasa before departing for Washington DC at midnight from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
She is expected to receive the award at the USIP headquarters on the March 1, the first day of Women’s History Month, and ahead of the International Women Day.
She said the award is a great recognition for Kenyan peace-builders, women and especially persons with disability.
“This means Kenya is a country that is recognized for peace and should be an example of peace to other nations amid the conflicts in many parts of the world,” Zaja said.
Kenya, she said, should be at the round table talking peace and security.
Zaja, who suffered polio while she was still a child, is happily married with children.
Margaret Kalekye/Haniel Mengistu
