Mama Sarah Obama, a new Voice of rural women

The 87 year old grandmother of US President Barack Obama is the new voice of marginalized rural women in Kenya. Today, a section of Kenya's media reports that mama Sarah Obama has caled on the Kenyan government to support rural women who are hard hit by the devastating famine.

In her charity work amongst women in rural Kenya, Mama Obama who lives in the Kogelo in western Nyanza province continues to advocate strongly for both the government and non governmental organization to give assistance especially to widows and orphans.

Because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, many orphaned children have been left under the care of old grandparents who have no strength to work neither reasonable income to afford a livelihood for there grand children.

Mama Sarah Obama who was also appointed by one international NGO to be a goodwill ambassador against malnutrition noted that many programs aimed at empowering women have not given assistance to women at the grassroot as they should. She said “I want the Government to support women in the villages by empowering them economically,” (E A Standard march 2009) and called on NGOs to find other avenues of empowering women in rural villages.

This is a voice to reckon with. it is our hope that policy makers shall heaken to this new voice of reason.