Dr. Molly Mwangi, campaigning against all odds for a just cause

After seventeen years of living in the wilderness in a war torn country, Dr Molly Wamaitha Mwangi has declared to break the record and contest a parliamentary seat in a constituency whose campaigns are dominated by violence and big money over the years.

She is the first person to contest Kiharu constituency seat despite all the odds and challenges she is facing.

In her campaigns, she is focusing more on advocating for the need of peace.She says there can never be development without peace.“Peace is a major ingredient of development. It’s important to maintain peace among our selves, at family and national levels. Life is precious and should be guarded at all cost” she says, adding that using force to achieve anything is wrong and dialogue is the only solution to problems, citing Sudan that fought for years but guns never worked until they dialogued.

 “The years I spent working in Uganda as a community development and health specialist taught me a lot of things. It took a lot of consultations and soul searching before I decided to join politics,” she said during an interview.

She has also managed to persuade other women to come out and take part in active politics in the area, and as a result, more than ten women civic candidates, the largest number ever in Kiharu are in the race with various party tickets

She is not scared of the fact that she is fighting it out wealthy political veterans.

“I have considered all odds. But I still managed to get elected as Democratic Party treasurer. My male opponents used a lot of money to make sure that I was not elected nut I still went through,” she adds.

The biggest advantage to her is her past development record. She started initiating development projects after she was employed by the international organisation long before she had an idea that she will one day join politics. She says the challenges she is meeting in politics are nothing compared to what she experienced in Sudan since 1990 when she was posted to work there.

In her campaigns, her main focus and advice to his opponents is peace. “Most Kenyans do not know what war is. They have just seen bloodshed in TVs but I would hate a situation where politicians drive the country into war. I would hate to see what I witnessed in Sudan happen to our country,” said the doctor. She recounted her experience in Sudan with a lot of emotions.

Dr Molly was in charge of emergency and humanitarian work in Sudan , a department with the responsibilities of training in health and service provision and research. She says the only advantage with the country is that its people and friendly and hospitable, though the government is hostile to strangers.

In some areas like Kapoeta where she worked for the better part of her stay in the foreign country, she says, though there is no war, the area is still tense.“Malnutrition among the children and women is still high and people are devastated by war,” says the Dr, who spent most of her time dashing to escape bullets and bombs in various parts of the country.

During her stay, she had come to learn on where to be and when.“The government struck on clear days. So the first thing we did in the morning was to study weather,” she says.When there were a lot of stars in the sky, they spend the day in the camps since they were sure the government soldiers would attack. She recalls a day when she was in class training nurses when she noted that there was unrest in the classroom. Soon after, she saw everybody in the village running away, that meant there was an attack. The village was Waat, at the upper Nile region where a good number of Kenya youths are stuck today.

The big problem was that nobody told the truth in Sudan, and she only discovered there was war when she heard the gunshots. And when she enquired from a village elder, she was told that some soldiers were hunting in a bush near the rescue camp.

“We were three KeBut after about two kilometers of running, she noted a military humanitarian worker running after them. He advised the duo to go back to the camp and alert the United Nations security. Nyans and I knew the elder had lied to us. I told my colleagues we escape to the air strip, “She recalls. They then kept relocating from one level to the other. Each level meant the state of insecurity. “The UN security had to come for us when we said were at level four. Level four meant we had to be rescued immediately,” They were in the upper region of Nile which is very under privileged with no roads and the air strip was two hour walking distance.

Most of the times, they depended on strangers protection. Her worst day was when she got a report that there was a village with high malnutrition cases. With her team, she spent a week there giving humanitarian services before war broke out. “I remember how a militia came and shot dead one of our man as we watched. We had to sneak under bombs,” she narrates, but though she looks composed, one can read the fear in her eyes.She adds that despite the hardships, Sudanese are friendly and supportive.

Dr Molly, who resigns to join Kenya politics, said she was motivated by the fact that people were suffering and someone had to assist them.“It’s a commitment to offer humanitarian services. I was happy to watch children and recover under my care but the worst part of it was that there were no centers for expectant mothers, we are all human being and someone had to be there for them,” she says.

On shifting from offering humanitarian services to politics in Kenya, Dr Molly says she has not stopped working but just changed geographical location, and that experience in Sudan has transformed her, and she can not think of herself.She says like in Kenya , Sudan has a lot of unexploited natural resources.

According to a documentary she has done from Sudan,   she says any country should not have section of people make decision on natural resources without involving others especially the youth and women, who are wealthy of ideas but are left out because they don’t have avenues to channel their contributions.

This is what has led to war in many countries of the world, she says, adding that involvement should start right at the village levels to ensure that minimal resources are not individualized but are used for community social and economic development.

As she fights to win the Kiharu seat, she prays that the voters will vote for a candidate who knows their problems, one who is believes in consultations.