Regina’s Story

This photo is a portrait of a dream fulfilled. Regina, in cap and gown, has just graduated with a degree in Early Childhood Education. She is surrounded by the women of her village and two of her S.H.E. “sisters” in a traditional Maasai dance of celebration. The women who flank her range in age from late teens to well into their eighties. There is no doubt that Regina and her S.H.E. “sisters” are the only women in the photo to have been educated beyond primary school.

What you can’t see in the photo is that with the photographer are seven S.H.E. funders, among them Maureen, who, with a group of her friends, has been supporting Regina’s college studies for the last three years. Maureen and Regina have been sharing words, photos, and poems through texts, but this is their first meeting. Behind the visitors are about 100 villagers who have gathered to celebrate this “daughter” with speeches, ceremony, song and dance. 

One after another three preachers and the local Maasai Chief proclaim that because of Regina, girls will no longer be cut in this village. Because of Regina, girls will be sent to school. Because, the Chief proudly tells us, Regina has not only managed to graduate and get a job, she has fulfilled every Maasai daughter’s dream: she has earned enough money to build her mother a good house. This, he says, has the greatest impact of all, an undeniable reminder to the community of the benefit of educating girls.

In fact, when I last visited Regina’s mother, she was living in a traditional Maasai manyatta, a mud and dung house with a grass or iron roof. Today, before the ceremony, Regina proudly leads us to the large home, made of iron sheeting, with a big tank outside for gathering water so that her mother no longer has to walk for hours to a muddy river so her family can survive.