What if women being in leadership was not only about representation, but about what women
could build?
That question did not begin in a strategy room.
It emerged during a three-day journey through Mathare, Mageuzi Hub and Karura—a journey
into memory, resistance, culture and the responsibility carried from one generation to another.
On 1 June 2024, Madaraka Day, Lapid Leaders Africa gathered at Karura Forest to honour
women elders whose leadership and sacrifice contributed to Kenya’s liberation and
nation-building journey.
The journey began on 31 May 2024 in Mathare, shortly after severe flooding had destroyed homes, disrupted livelihoods and displaced families.
In the absence of sufficient institutional support, community leaders had organised shelter and
meals for those affected.
What we encountered was injustice—but also community power
People were not waiting passively to be rescued. They were organising, caring for one another
and insisting on their right to shape what happened next. Mathare reminded us that liberation is not something a country achieves once.
It must be continually defended through solidarity, community and self-determination.
It also raised an uncomfortable question:
What does freedom mean when people remain excluded from the decisions, institutions and economic systems shaping their lives?
Later that day, the journey continued at Mageuzi Hub. There, we reflected on the contribution of writers, artists and activists whose work helped sustain Kenya’s struggle for freedom and justice.
The gathering honoured the legacy of Professor Micere Githae Mugo, whose writing, teaching and activism challenged oppressive systems and expanded the imagination of liberation.
Philo Ikonya and Dr. Mshai Mwangola shared poetry, songs and stories of women whose intellectual and artistic work helped shape the Kenya we inherited.
Their reflections reminded us that liberation is not built only through political action.
It is also built through language, culture, memory and imagination.
One younger participant reflected that she had attended Limuru Girls but had never been taught
about Professor Micere Mugo.
Another described the shift more directly:
“Why was I not taught this?” became “I will learn and teach them.”
That is the power of recovered memory.
It does not only change what we know.
It changes what we believe we are capable of becoming.
On Madaraka Day, the journey reached its emotional centre at Karura Forest.
There, we honoured four women representing different traditions of Kenya’s liberation and
nation-building journey
The gathering was not only an act of honour.
It was an intergenerational transfer.
Younger participants left with a deeper understanding of the cost of freedom, the responsibility of leadership and the knowledge still held by women who came before them.
The women we honoured did more than enter spaces from which women had previously been
excluded.
Their leadership invites a more demanding question for women today:
What if women’s leadership changed what the room valued, imagined and
built?
What if women used their influence not only to occupy positions, but to strengthen organisations, build enterprises, develop talent, direct capital, shape policy and expand economic opportunity?
What if women connected the civic and the economic—recognising that public decisions shape markets, livelihoods and access, while businesses and financial systems shape dignity, power
and participation?
What if collaboration became more than networking and instead became a way of combining influence around shared problems?
This is not an argument that women automatically lead differently.
Women can reproduce the same broken systems they enter.
The opportunity lies in women choosing to exercise leadership differently—to become stewards
rather than only occupants of influence, and to build beyond themselves.
Together, the women we recognised reminded us that nation-building is both civic and economic. It happens through public leadership and political courage, but also through the institutions, enterprises, capital and opportunities that shape how people live.
But remembrance alone was not enough. We needed to honour the women who built before us.
We needed to recognise women using their influence to strengthen institutions, expand economic opportunity and serve a wider public good.
And we needed to bring women across sectors and generations together around the question of
what they must now build
That conviction became the foundation of Women of Purpose.
Today, the platform comes to life through two connected expressions.
We bring women together across sectors and generations to reflect on what they have inherited, what influence they carry and what they must now build.
At the heart of both is one conviction:
Women’s leadership must be about more than presence. It must be about what women build.
Built for the Marathon
9 October 2026 | Nairobi, Kenya
A gathering for women using their leadership, expertise and influence to build what will endure.
