Empower a girl, transform a community | Kakenya Ntaiya

Kakenya Ntaiya turned her dream of getting an education into a movement to empower vulnerable girls and bring an end to harmful traditional practices in Kenya. Meet two students at the Kakenya Center for Excellence, a school where girls can live and study safely — and uplift their community along the way. "When you empower a girl, you transform a community," Ntaiya says.

Get TED Talks recommended just for you! Learn more at .

The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more.

Follow TED on Twitter:
Like TED on Facebook:

Subscribe to our channel:

56 Comments on Empower a girl, transform a community | Kakenya Ntaiya

    • omg I think my eyes have rolled right out of my head! Girls there are STILL having their genitals mutilated! They don’t have the same access to education as boys do. This woman did something about it. Stop getting all hot and bothered, did you even listen to the talk? Sheesh.

    • +Adam&Qi ZR I heard they circumcise a near insignificant fraction of girls compared to how many boys we circumcise. I hear that child marriages have significantly lower divorce rates than adult marriages. I hear that countries where women do not work are countries where women have time to pursue their hobbies. This woman should be thankful that she is from Kenya and not a “developed nation”.

  1. oh no a women was on a ted talk, better complain a lot about how THE SJWS ARE TAKING VIDEO GAMES BTW IF YOU RESPOND TO THIS COMMENT IN ANY KIND OF NEGATIVE WAY YOU ARE TAKING MY CONTISTITUTIONALLYSGDDG RIGTH OF FRESE PEACDBS AD BREA EJEGDNARMS ahhhhhhhhhhhh

  2. This continued narrative that women need helping and empowering because they for some reason need this more than men is just continuing to make women feel less than men. It doesn’t empower them at all. Empower a PERSON and empower a community.

    • You can’t compare women’s situation in Kenya to womens’ situation in the west, gender inequality is much bigger there, and focusing on women is not patronizing, it’s necessary because they don’t have the same opportunities in the first place. The woman in the video said that child marriage is a huge problem there, so women can’t access to education. I get why people think that saying “educating a girl” instead of “educating a person” is sexist, but it’s not. They have to focus on girls because they are the ones who suffer discrimination, they are not denying education to boys by doing it. Saying things like “gender shouldn’t matter”, “we are all people”, thought good intentioned, doesn’t solve the problem. To achieve equality when there is discrimination, we have to focus on the discriminated group first, treating both groups the same way when there is inequality won’t end the problem.

    • +Mmm K there is another name for genital mutilation, it is called circumcision. Equality means both get cut or neither does.

    • +KarmaPolice42 Like they don’t take the young boys out of school to turn them into child-soldiers. Or push them into slavery, mining for gold diamonds.

  3. Before you type a comment, think; before you decide to type, listen and hear; if you can’t hear the democratic (free) accent in the message maybe you don’t need to post!

  4. We could try empowering “people”. Man I miss when TED was really about thinking out of boxes. Now they just push one Box..

    • The irony being, they pretend it’s equality, when instead it’s a zero-sum game…. empower a certain group, by getting concessions from other ouf-of-favour, politically-incorrect groups.

    • ​+Mmm K Men and women have been empowered in different ways throughout history. It’s fair to compare, but to use a binary “men were empowered, women weren’t” is ludicrous – clearly an attempt to start a biased fire on your end. I must wonder what hoops you jump through to consider the millennia of male-only conscription “empowerment”.

      Yes, there were serious inequalities and expectations placed on both genders in the past, whether some were worse or not. We’re doing a fantastic job of mitigating those today by prioritising personal freedom and equality under law. …However, the cultural shift is currently heavily biased in favour of women. Granted, men got away with a fair bit more in the recent 20th century – but to deny the woes of a group of people in favour of another is a gross injustice on your part. I hope you reconsider making statements like that, and I wish you nothing but the best.

    • +Mmm K I do not think you try, though I do think you are very trying. I was not talking about your mindset, I was talking about the male mindset described in the talk which seems to be implying that males must take ownership for the appauling behaviour of females, you know like the women who are mutilating the genitalia of girls?

    • +The Flaneur and I will also hope that government of USA will impose the shariah law in USA . We both can’t be more happy to see our views imputed as a Law

    • +The Flaneur yeah all his civil disobedience movement in south Africa and asking for the Wrights of black majority from the ruling white minority was just fake stunts, I mean only a idiot will see black people as humans and that asinine went so far that he demanded the equal rights for black. I mean that’s absurd

    • Also these asinine south Africans made a huge museum and statues of Gandhi and that fool Nelson Mandela he was also inspired by Gandhi. He also should have got the same death as Gandhi… so unfair to him Wright Mr.Flaneur ??

    • I mean women didn’t fought the world wars or any wars…. see how many billionaires are women and USA is super power and they never had a female president I mean that’s why they are a superpower. It just proves that even by giving them equal rights u can’t make them equal to men….. coz they aren’t and can’t be

    • +Mayank Singh Make woman an equal, she becomes your superior. If you even examine female behaviour, and not what they actually say, you will recognize that they don’t even respect men who are their equals. They are always looking above, for someone more dominant.

  5. Every time there’s a ted talk that focuses on girls and women, people get butthurt. These girls in Kenya really need the help. This does not mean boy’s rights are taken away or anything like that. Please watch the video and educate yourself.

    • _Every time there’s a ted talk that focuses on girls and women, people get butthurt._

      Only people who care about gender equality get butthurt. Also remember that uneducated girls and women can marry and be supported that way. Uneducated men do not have that option because men are expected to be the breadwinner. If a man is of no use to society he will be thrown onto the streets. No woman will marry an uneducated man and support him given a choice. But plenty of men will happily marry an uneducated woman and support her. In fact most men expect to do this anyway.

      This is why in poor areas of the world a family will prioritise their boy’s education over their girl’s because men’s role is to support a wife and family, including the elderlies, often traveling overseas and sending money back home. And often doing dangerous or dirty work that no woman wants to do.

      If you are in a poor village and you can only afford to train one doctor, will you pay to train a female doctor who will likely get married and then take ten years off work to have babies or a male doctor who will be able to work throughout his entire adult life? .. the point being we’ve always tended to educate men as a priority because this generally benefits society the most, including benefiting women the most.

      These subjects are always more nuanced when you look into them. In Iran they had to ban women from getting STEM degrees because they are just doing it to gain social status and get a higher status husband. They were not actually pursuing a career in STEM, leading to a nationwide shortage of scientists and a lot of wasted tax money on pointless tuition that was not being used.

      Remember, boys get educated with an aim to support women and families. Girls get educated for themselves (female empowerment). When resources are limited (ie poor countries), which serves a poor community the most?

      But of course if you are a CHARITY it pays to campaign for women and girls. If you campaign for boys and men you will get zero money or support from anyone.

    • Name a country that has recorded studies of happiness levels of the populace that became happier when it went from a non-feminist country to a feminist country. The reason you can’t is because there is none. Feminism harms women and girls.

    • +mike donnarumma <<< Self-loathing male, lacking in confidence. Gets his fat, hairy wife to peg, whip, and humiliate the guilt out of him every Tuesday night. Get's cucked every Friday for good measure. Thinks it's an privilege, an honour to have a wife who can't even cook. Comes to YouTube comments to virtue signal. Most likely raised by a single mom with piercings and tattoos.

  6. I have absolute nothing against this video, BUT its a shame how today the media trys to manipulate our society. Deleteting comments? Censore free speech? I am really disapointed of TED!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


Shares
Share This