Njoki Wainaina

Njoki Wainaina is a gender and development consultant from Kenya. She was the first executive director of the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), formed in 1988.

Career

Wainaina became involved in gender and development work in the early 1970s, and since then has been a leader in the women's movement in Kenya. She attended global meetings of the World Conference on Women in Mexico City (1975), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995). Wainaina helped to pioneer FEMNET in the late 1970s. At FEMNET she coordinated and integrated gender concerns in the programs of development agencies in Kenya. She has campaigned for male support in eliminating discrimination against women, particularly gender-based violence. When she retired from FEMNET she was succeeded by Lynne Muthoni Wanyeki, a radical feminist in her early thirties. As of 2010 Wainaina was almost 70, a wife, mother and grandmother, still active both in business and as a gender consultant.

Views Wainaina says that gender training involves challenging centuries-old structures, challenging power relations at the personal, family, community and national levels. She says "it can be a very threatening exercise". She has said of her work "Women's leadership is the most political work. First of all, we are fighting for rights. We are fighting for something somebody else has [that belongs to us]. So we have to fight them, persuade them. Trick them. So it is so political, You need to be very confident to just be able to continue and to say you know, yes, I understand what you are saying, but ... and to be able to keep your head and not get angry".

Wainaina is founder of Men for Gender Equality Now, a Kenyan NGO.