Among others, the event will honour Kakenya Ntaiya of Kenya from the Vital Voices Global Network, the nongovernmental organisation von Furstenberg supports.
Engaged at age five, Kakenya Ntaiya was supposed to undergo ritual circumcision by the time she was a teenager — an event that would mark the end of her education and the beginning of her preparations for marriage.
Holding fast to dreams of becoming a teacher, Kakenya negotiated with her father: she would go through the ceremony only if she could also finish high school. He agreed.
After completing high school, she negotiated with the village elders to do what no girl had ever done: leave her Maasai village of Enoosaen to go to college in the United States. The girl who grew up without electricity wrote papers on international relations and political science on the computers in the university library.
Kakenya earned her doctorate in education and is now a passionate activist for girls’ education. She has personally experienced the freedom and opportunity that comes with a secondary education and is realising her dream to provide the same for the girls of Enoosaen.
The awards were created with the support of the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to heighten exposure and give resources to individuals who work on women’s causes. Each honoree will receive $50,000 to sustain and further their humanitarian efforts.
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