I have been given power to change my people's lives
Ms Caroline Tegeret is quite dazzled with her achievement.
“My dream of becoming an advocate has finally come true,” the 25-year-old tells the Nation.
What is more amazing is the fact that she is the first female lawyer from the Ogiek community.
Ogiek, a traditionally hunter-gatherer community still striving to reclaim ownership of their ancestral land in the contentious Mau Forest Complex, has a population of 52,596 people according the 2019 Census.
Ms Tegeret adds to the history of the community that has, for more than 30 years, struggled to safeguard their land and human rights.
Since the 1930s, the Ogiek have been fighting with successive governments to reclaim their land in the Mau Forest.
The Ogiek are also found in parts of Nakuru, Kericho, Baringo, Narok and Uasin Gishu counties.
In 2017, they made history when they won a human rights case against the Kenyan government at the Arusha-based African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The court ruled that the community has rights to their ancestral land and by evicting them, it violated their rights to land, religion, culture and development. It directed the government to remedy the violations and the community is until today waiting for justice to be served.
EIGHT SIBLINGS
As a lawyer, Ms Tegeret says she is on a mission to end injustice meted on her people.
“I have witnessed the suffering of my community and I am in for a change,” asserts the second born of eight siblings.
She was born and brought up in Nessuit, a village in Njoro Sub-county in Nakuru County and she was once, in 2008, a victim of the evictions.
Her learning journey started with trekking four kilometres to attend pre-primary at Kongoi Primary School in Kuresoi North Sub-county.
She later joined Olenguruone Day and Boarding School as a boarder for the Class Four to Class Seven studies.
She sat her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams at Nessuit Primary School. All these schools are in Nakuru County.
MENTOR GIRLS
She then attended Kapropita Girls High Shool in Baringo County.
Ms Tegeret graduated with her degree in Law from Moi University in 2017, and later joined Kenya School of Law (January 2018-19) for her post-graduate degree.
Between March and August, 2019, she undertook her pupillage at a Nakuru- based law firm. On July 2, 2020, she was admitted to bar and thus, officially permitted to practice as a lawyer.
Her desire to become a lawyer developed while in high school as she was disturbed by the struggles of her community members to protect their rights.
The young lawyer says she has a role to mentor other girls that she intends to dutifully play through partnership with government agencies and civil societies.
“My plan is to empower girls through mentorship programs. I want them to know that they are capable of doing whatever they desire to do,” she says.
Her parents, she says, are her cradle of motivation, hope and strength and she is unwilling to disappoint them, she says, as they always remind her to be the community’s champion of change.
“I owe all my achievements to my parents. They are a huge blessing to me,” she says.
Her father is a teacher while her mother manages their home.
Ms Tegeret says: “I have been given the power to change the lives of my people, now it is the time to do it.”
