Super Girl of The Month - Grace Sabiri Mageka



Grace's story has more often than not, been referred to as that of a young woman who overcame a lot of obvious odds and challenges to become a world acclaimed young leader.

 

Born in Nyagisai Village - Kisii, in East Africa's Kenya, Grace Sabiri Mageka began her leadership journey from the four walls of her home. Being the first child and only girl, she assumed responsibility of taking care of her younger brothers early in life, as her mother was feeling unwell and her father worked away from their home. According to her; "I used to do all the chores at home before and after school, and still had to take care of my mother who was in bed most of the time." Despite this responsibility at a tender age, Grace struck an amazing balance between studying and doing house chores, and consistently topped her class.

 

To create a better learning atmosphere for Grace, her father enrolled her at St. Anne Nyabondo Girls Boarding Primary School. Coming from the village, she claims to have gotten her much needed exposure at this school which fortified her for greater tasks ahead. One of her challenges at school was her speech (which had a lot of mother tongue influence), and she had to work hard to get her pronunciations right, especially "Rs" and "Ls". Upon finishing primary school, she went on to Ahero Girls Secondary School. Here, she had to cope with her peers' concept of beauty, as a girl who kept short hair. This was a constant setback when she wanted to join the drama and music festival clubs, only for girls with longer hair to be considered. Our super girl Grace decided to no longer focus on such extra curricular activities but concentrate on her studies. This doggedness to study paid off for her, as she distinguished herself in traditionally "hard" subjects like Mathematics.

 

In 2008, her father passed on, and since he was the breadwinner, things looked tough for Grace and her siblings. But there was hope. Her uncle who was working in Nairobi at the time came in and helped in paying her tuition. He even took her to St. Elizabeth Karen, where Grace completed her secondary education before gaining admission into the University of Nairobi to work towards bagging a Bachelors Degree in Commerce (Human Resource option). At UoN, Grace joined a number of university-based organisations that dealt with emerging societal issues. She also became part of the Emerging Leaders Foundation (ELF) due to her hunger for self development and her strong desire to be a change maker.

Today, Grace is truly leading the change that she set out to lead.

In 2014, she was selected to take part in the second Mandela Institute Development Studies Annual African Youth Dialogue on Elections and Governance in Africa and was also selected as the Africa Youth champion for the post 2015 development agenda. As an inspiring young woman, Grace was one of the young women who graduated from the Emerging Leaders Program (Young Women Leaders) in November 2014, after a one year training on leadership skills. In addition, she served as a Youth representative for the First Euro African Youth Parliament at Berlin, Germany in 2014.

Grace Mageka is an international youth leader, an advocate, mentor, peer motivator, volunteer, social change maker, and above all an innovator doing everything in her power to transform her community. She is interested in youth leadership, democracy & good governance, social entrepreneurship, volunteerism, youth and women related issues. She believes that we become better leaders by teaching what we know, putting it into practice and developing the capacity of people around us.

Girl Pride Circle is very proud of Grace Sabiri Mageka. We believe that she is worthy of emulation by all super girls in Africa.