The introduction of formal education in Kenya by the British was received with mixed reactions from Africans. Some saw it as a gateway into the white man’s world, a means to earn a seat at the table and achieve equality. Others were distrustful of its implications and believed that getting a formal education was akin to collaborating. In one household in Kinoo village in Kiambu, these beliefs split one family down the middle, with a young girl believing the former and her father sticking to the latter. The girl’s name was Thara Njomo.
Educating the Girl-Child
Thara was born in 1913, a time when the first crop of schools was being established in the East Africa Protectorate. The school closest to her home was in Thogoto and was run by the Church of Scotland Mission. From a young age, Thara was deeply drawn to the concept of formal education. Her requests to her father to send her to school fell on deaf ears as she was reminded that her place was at home. But Thara was strong-willed; when she was 10 years old, she ran away and enrolled herself into Mambere School. Thus began the game of cat and mouse between Thara and her father; every few weeks he snuck into the school and took her back home, where she stayed a while before making away once more. Hoping to put an end to this matter, Njomo moved his family to Njoro and organized for his daughter to undergo female circumcision.
The changes did not faze Thara, who trekked 20 kilometres to the railway station, stowed away in a train and made her way back to Mambere School. Her father disowned her after this final escape, giving Thara the freedom to complete her education. She was baptised in April 1928 and christened Sarah Sarai. Sarah went on to train as a nurse and a midwife at Thogoto Mission Hospital.
Becoming a #KeFemaleFirst
Over the course of the next two decades, Sarah worked in different parts of East Africa, starting at Fort Hall District Hospital (now Murang’a County Referral Hospital), followed by the Native Civil Hospital (now Coast General Hospital) in Mombasa. She also worked in Kilifi, Tanga in Tanganyika, and Mulango in Uganda. As designated home visitor, Sarah nursed patients in their homes and did so while sensitising women against traditional practices that affected their reproductive health. She moved back to Nairobi in 1942, where she became the first African woman allowed to perform nursing duties at The Aga Khan Hospital, then a clinic. She later worked as a theatre nurse at the European Base Hospital (present-day State House Girls’ High School).
Beyond caring for the sick, Sarah was also passionate about the general wellbeing of African families. She wanted children to grow up in close-knit homes, something she had missed out on in her childhood. After World War II, she joined the Municipal Council of Nairobi as a social welfare assistant and initiated social and child welfare programmes in the low-income African segregated residential areas of Pumwani, Ziwani, Kaloleni and Shauri Moyo. This led her to breaking yet another racial and gender barrier in 1949 by becoming the first African woman to serve on the Nairobi African Advisory Council.
Forging a New Path
Sarah challenged racial segregation laws even in her personal life. Earlier on, she refused to follow the precedent set by missionaries at Thogoto that forbade African women from wearing shoes and growing their hair. While working for the council, she refused to ride segregated commuter buses in which Europeans rode on upholstered seats up front while Africans had wooden seats at the back. Instead, she bought herself a bicycle and rode it to work. African women did not have maternity leave, so when breastfeeding she took her child to work by carrying him in a wicker basket on her bicycle. This went against the regulations, but Sarah was making a statement about maternity and early childhood rights. For two years, she tirelessly fought for the rights of African women, and one of her greatest victories was enacting policy change that granted African women on the council maternity leave. And in the most brazen move of all, Sarah presented Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth a bouquet of flowers when she touched down in Nairobi in 1952; attached to this bouquet was a memorandum detailing Africans’ grievances.
In the early 1950s, Sarah wanted to increase her liberation efforts and joined the Kenya African Union. Under this political organization, she organized and led peaceful demonstrations for improvement of Africans’ living and working conditions.
Sarah was barred from joining the European East African Women’s League, an organisation that advocated for the right of European Women in British East Africa to vote. If you can’t join them, beat them. She formed the Nairobi African Women’s League, whose objective was to exact more political space for African women. On 20th October 1952, the day when the women’s league was planning a rally in Nairobi, she was arrested and sentenced to an eight-year prison term. She was first detained at Athi River, then moved to Isinya, Kamiti, Gatamaiyu and Kirigiti. She endured severe torture but refused to yield by confessing to having taken the Mau Mau oath. The confines of jail did not deter her from her fight for freedom as she continued to pen petitions and memoranda to the colonial government advocating for independence. She also held trauma counselling sessions for other inmates and drafted letters for them which were smuggled to their families. Sarah was released in 1960 but restricted to her home village of Kinoo for a year.
Life After Uhuru
After her release, Sarah returned to the political arena and was elected to the Governing Council of KANU Women’s Wing in June 1962. She did not cease her activism even after Kenya gained independence on 12th December 1963, as she formed the Kirinyaga Welfare Association that worked to rehabilitate and reconcile families torn apart during the liberation struggle. She also started a vernacular radio programme on the Voice of Kenya called Tata wa Ciana (The Children’s Aunt) in which she talked about hygiene and family management.
Sarah’s dedication to healthcare, social welfare, and politics cannot be forgotten. She worked hard to ensure that policies that demeaned African women were scrapped, and that Kenyan children grew up in an independent nation. On 14th July 2003, Sarah Sarai Thara Njomo, aged 90, passed away after years of battling arthritis and Alzheimer’s. We remember her as a freedom fighter and a #KeFemaleFirst.