SWIMMING WITH SHARKS By Adeline Mwau

Description

This book is founded upon the indefatigable “Why Not?” spirit i. I owe a lot of my success in life to these two little words. These two words can shift what one perceives as a problem, to a learning opportunity. They turn a challenge into a teachable moment. I speak to the reader to be a rebel with a cause, and let that cause be an entity that’s bigger than them. Those who know me will tell you I’m a non-conformist. And I learnt that from the best teacher in the world: Mrs. Teresiah Rhoda Nundu Mwau, my mother whose story is well detailed in my memoir.

My memoir also describes my career experiences which were my learning points on transformation for self, communities and society into becoming sources of justice and equality. It details how through this process, I got to learn the difference between spirituality and religion forming the basis on which I live today. I had access to a form of education that did not domesticate basing my life on a personal and social analysis, a Christian concept of transformation by educationalist professionals like Paul Frère and Julius Nyerere, Fr. Joe Dondas, Mahatma Gandhi, liberation theology theologians and feminists around the world.

Further, I offer a firsthand experience to the reader on how critical analysis has helped in my work of transforming my life as well as the communities around me opening my understanding of millions of people trapped in various systems of exploitation managed by powerful groups. Subsequently, my memoir articulates to the reader how having worked as a teacher,a gender mainstreaming consultant and a civil rights advocate gave me a political and social economic background of the place the woman had been relegated to by society and a rich understanding of women’s struggles, bearing the drive to want go to where laws were made to question the policies, challenge laws, structures and practices and the constitution that made women the second class in this country. I wanted to ask the hard questions: Who has access to resources? Who has control over them? My memoir speaks on women and leadership.

As a first-generation seasoned woman leader, I give the reader a real-life experience of the hurdles, the twists, the turns and the shifts women vying for political office have to deal with. Through my personal practice, I demystify myths around women leaderships, give hope to the aspiring, current and upcoming women leaders and strongly denounce women agreeing to be to be relegated to the invisibility while in leadership positions.