Everywhere in the world, girls face astounding charges of sexual harassment on public transport. In Kenya, this subject impacts 88 p.c of ladies. What if we may redesign public transport methods to essentially enhance security for girls and different susceptible teams? That is the query social entrepreneur Naomi Mwaura is answering with FLONE Initiative – the group she based in 2013. Ashoka’s Josephine Nzerem caught up with Naomi. They spoke about her deep love and appreciation for “matatus” – Kenya’s minibuses – and the way she is reworking a whole business from the bottom up by placing extra girls in cost.
Naomi Mwaura, founding father of Flone Initiative is reworking Kenya’s transportation business.
Josephine Nzerem: For individuals who aren’t conversant in Kenya’s transport system, may you clarify how matatus are run?
Naomi Mwaura: In Kenya, we don’t have government-operated transport. Any non-public citizen with the right licenses can purchase and function a bus, a matatu. The individuals who run the car, reminiscent of the motive force and conductor, are all paid informally. There isn’t a contract or minimal wage. Such a employment is essential, as a result of Kenya has a excessive youth unemployment price. Public transport is the one place an adolescent can go with out having to decorate up, with out having to talk correct English, and nonetheless handle to go residence with $5.
Nzerem: When did you determine that public transport in Kenya wanted to be reformed?
Mwaura: Rising up, my household ran a matatu, in my hometown. It was very colorfully painted and highly regarded. It gave me an appreciation of public transport’s skill to create employment for an entire prolonged household whereas offering freedom of mobility.
However whereas in college, I had the horrible expertise of being assaulted on a bus, which made me replicate on the overall state of public transport in Kenya. I used to be jolted into motion when two years later, I noticed a viral video of a girl being bodily assaulted on a bus. My college mates and I made a decision to arrange a protest to deliver consideration to the problem of ladies’s security. Solely 4 of us confirmed up and we ended up with extra media than protestors. Fortunately, my lawyer buddy had the sensible thought to show it right into a press convention and that is how the Flone Initiative Belief was born.
Nzerem: You might have come a good distance since then. What was the primary hole you began to plug?
Mwaura: One of many issues we struggled with to start with was a scarcity of knowledge. We had lived experiences, as girls utilizing public transport, however we couldn’t discover information to again up our unfavorable experiences. That’s why the muse of all we do is motion analysis and data era. We began monitoring incidents, which allowed us to make particular suggestions to the matatu business. For instance, we realized they may make their bus routes safer for girls just by having predictable routes and schedules. There’s now an ongoing dialog about gender and mobility in Kenya and East Africa. And there’s additionally new curiosity in trying on the journey wants of different susceptible teams like individuals with disabilities or the aged. We now work with greater than 3,000 matatu operators, 100+ transport stakeholders (together with authorities companies and labor unions) and greater than 1,000 girls professionals to implement our interventions.
Nzerem: How did Flone deliver this dialog into the mainstream?
Mwaura: The tipping level of our work got here once we turned co-organisers of the #MyDressMyChoice protest in response to a few viral movies of ladies being assaulted and having their garments stripped off at bus terminals. It was the primary time individuals got here to me and stated “Now I perceive what you might be speaking about. I didn’t suppose it was that unhealthy…” Our actions led to authorized reforms that makes stripping girls of their garments punishable by as much as 10 years — a criminal offense that’s particular to the general public transport business.
Nzerem: How are you getting girls concerned? What position are they taking part in in shaping the transport business?
Mwaura: Relying on who you ask, girls professionals are estimated to make up about solely seven p.c of the general public transport workforce. Our Ladies in Transport program works to draw, retain and advance girls professionals within the business. We offer skilled improvement coaching, like driving programs or monetary administration programs. That manner girls drivers can get the monetary muscle tissues wanted to maneuver greater within the business. So we have to put money into girls all through the worth chain. Let’s ensure extra of them grow to be producers, assemblers, designers, engineers.
Nzerem: As extra girls enter the transportation business, what adjustments? Something stunning specifically?
Mwaura: Curiously, different susceptible teams really feel extra comfy when girls are in cost. Based on our analysis, individuals with disabilities choose autos run by a girl conductor. They are saying that girls are inclined to take higher care of their accessibility aids like canes and wheelchairs. And different girls usually tend to entrust girls with their youngsters, particularly college youngsters. Different girls are additionally becoming a member of the business after seeing our members on Nationwide TV speaking about their careers.
Nzerem: What are you pushing to perform in the present day?
Mwaura: We’re constructing a motion of inclusive mobility in Kenya, the place we break down siloes and produce help to the three most important stakeholders: practitioners, commuters and authorities officers. We will’t clear up the whole subject alone – we want everybody. For instance, final 12 months we labored with Machakos county officers. They independently carried out a security audit of their city’s transport infrastructure and we helped them create a toolbox. By constructing the federal government’s capability on this manner, we hope we are going to get to a degree the place public transport is regulated and run by the federal government.
We’re additionally doing an enormous push on habits change, as a result of among the points we’re coping with in public transport are as a consequence of tradition and socialization. We have to get to a degree the place persons are self-regulating. And this, sadly, takes a bit extra time. We obtain this by means of public consciousness campaigns, having non secular and cultural leaders converse up, and doing capability constructing for the business, particularly in casual transport, the place there isn’t any standardized coaching.
Nzerem: What excites you about the way forward for transport in Kenya?
Mwaura: One thing I hold fascinated with is the truth that, up till the Nineteen Nineties in Kenya, girls couldn’t open a checking account with out approval from their husband or household. When someone instructed me that, it appeared totally absurd. So I hope that future commuters will look again and say, ‘Hey, there was a time when public transport wasn’t one of the best ways for girls to journey; isn’t that absurd?’ I see a future the place public transport is secure, accessible, and an amazing office for Kenyans.
Comply with Naomi Mwaura on Twitter.