Rebuild & Restore Our Reclaimed Ancestral Home
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OUR FAMILY STORY. A HISTORY OF WOMEN LAND RIGHTS BATTLE.
↘In many developing countries, the female children/daughters have long suffered cultural discrimination on equal rights to family land. Oftentimes the perpetrators keeping them from their land have been their own greedy, distant relatives.
After my parents and brothers passed away and left over 100 acres of land plus our childhood home, my sisters and I were subject to this type of discrimination.
Between my late mother, my late four brothers, and my father's passing, a period of over 28 years of injustice befell my sisters and I dating back to 1992 when my oldest brother George's passed away to my father's death in 2003.
I was not present at any of their funerals because I couldn't travel for a long period of time due to some immigration issues. I vividly and painfully recall my sisters telling me stories about how they were physically forced out of our parents' home and land immediately after our father's funeral. I remember thinking how cruel that was and thought to myself "why would anyone do something like that to a grieving family with such immense loss!"
The unbelievable truth is that this type of injustice has been happening to many female members of the society in developing countries. Historically, daughters have been denied the equal rights to their family land. There have been movements like "The Girl Child" and "Women's Rights" that have come along over the years to make a change. Some good has come from these movements where women have stood up and fought for their rights.
My sisters and I have lived gripped by fear, paralyzed by grief from losing family members, and defenseless from unlawful act of denial of family land rights for years. It has taken 28 years of lost time from being apart as a family as we once were. We as the Omanya daughters and the Omanya grandchildren were forced to live apart from the home we knew against our will. Gender inequality in the United States dates as far back as the early 1900s and has diminished greatly in recent years. Unfortunately, developing countries still have a long way to go and are still battling this issue.
As a matter-of-fact, Kenya's land laws were amended as recently as 2016. This is 24 years after my brothers and parents died, a timing that still rendered my sisters and I at the mercy of unlawful cultural rights. It would take another 4 years to come to terms with this repealed law and to legally navigate evicting squatters from our land and our childhood/ancestral home!
We feel blessed and grateful for the repealed law, and for that reason we are extremely motivated to restore our damaged home and reunite our scattered family. I have personally vowed to myself through this experience to start influencing, inspiring, and educating women in developing countries who are still fighting for their land rights and help fund them to restore and rebuild.
My current short-term goal is to raise funds to rebuild my parents' home and reunite all my brothers' and sisters' children who happen to be 75% women. They have had to live away from their ancestral home for over two decades due to unlawful cultural land rights.
My long-term goal is to partner with womens' rights organizations in conjunction with the United Nations on the subject of womens' rights to bring needed change in lacking cases worldwide.
I hope this message and information moves you and brings you some awareness on what women as members of the society have endured quietly for many generations. Maybe the message resonates with you in your personal experiences. Or, perhaps this message inspires you to be part of the change such that you may be inclined to support us by donating to help us restore and rebuild for generations to come!
Thank you for reading, for your generosity, and for making a difference!❤
P R O P O S E D H O M E E L E V A T I O N
↘In many developing countries, the female children/daughters have long suffered cultural discrimination on equal rights to family land. Oftentimes the perpetrators keeping them from their land have been their own greedy, distant relatives.
After my parents and brothers passed away and left over 100 acres of land plus our childhood home, my sisters and I were subject to this type of discrimination.
Between my late mother, my late four brothers, and my father's passing, a period of over 28 years of injustice befell my sisters and I dating back to 1992 when my oldest brother George's passed away to my father's death in 2003.
I was not present at any of their funerals because I couldn't travel for a long period of time due to some immigration issues. I vividly and painfully recall my sisters telling me stories about how they were physically forced out of our parents' home and land immediately after our father's funeral. I remember thinking how cruel that was and thought to myself "why would anyone do something like that to a grieving family with such immense loss!"
The unbelievable truth is that this type of injustice has been happening to many female members of the society in developing countries. Historically, daughters have been denied the equal rights to their family land. There have been movements like "The Girl Child" and "Women's Rights" that have come along over the years to make a change. Some good has come from these movements where women have stood up and fought for their rights.
My sisters and I have lived gripped by fear, paralyzed by grief from losing family members, and defenseless from unlawful act of denial of family land rights for years. It has taken 28 years of lost time from being apart as a family as we once were. We as the Omanya daughters and the Omanya grandchildren were forced to live apart from the home we knew against our will. Gender inequality in the United States dates as far back as the early 1900s and has diminished greatly in recent years. Unfortunately, developing countries still have a long way to go and are still battling this issue.
As a matter-of-fact, Kenya's land laws were amended as recently as 2016. This is 24 years after my brothers and parents died, a timing that still rendered my sisters and I at the mercy of unlawful cultural rights. It would take another 4 years to come to terms with this repealed law and to legally navigate evicting squatters from our land and our childhood/ancestral home!
We feel blessed and grateful for the repealed law, and for that reason we are extremely motivated to restore our damaged home and reunite our scattered family. I have personally vowed to myself through this experience to start influencing, inspiring, and educating women in developing countries who are still fighting for their land rights and help fund them to restore and rebuild.
My current short-term goal is to raise funds to rebuild my parents' home and reunite all my brothers' and sisters' children who happen to be 75% women. They have had to live away from their ancestral home for over two decades due to unlawful cultural land rights.
My long-term goal is to partner with womens' rights organizations in conjunction with the United Nations on the subject of womens' rights to bring needed change in lacking cases worldwide.
I hope this message and information moves you and brings you some awareness on what women as members of the society have endured quietly for many generations. Maybe the message resonates with you in your personal experiences. Or, perhaps this message inspires you to be part of the change such that you may be inclined to support us by donating to help us restore and rebuild for generations to come!
Thank you for reading, for your generosity, and for making a difference!❤
P R O P O S E D H O M E E L E V A T I O N
Organizer
Ruth Omanya
Organizer
Naperville, IL
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