Jemimah Gecaga

Jemimah Gecaga (1920–1979) was the first woman to serve in the legislature of Kenya and the founder of the women's advocacy organization, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake.

Biography Gecaga was born to a Kikuyu family in Kenya. Her parents, Leah Magana and George Segeni Njoroge, were Christian converts who attended the Church of the Torch which had been founded by the famous Church of Scotland minister, John William Arthur. Her father worked as a cook at a Presbyterian mission in Nairobi and later opened a store.

In 1952, she founded Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, a women's NGO that advocates for women's rights and gender equity in Kenya. In 1958, she was nominated to the Legislative Council in Kenya, the first woman to serve in the parliament of the country; she served until 1962. She later served as President of the YWCA in Kenya, as a home economics lecturer at Jeanes School (The Kenya School of Government) and as a director at Skyline Advertising. Gecaga died in 1979 at the age of 59.