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1. Healing & Empowering Women in Kenya with Habiba Corodhia Mohamed
95 Plays4 months ago
With the changes unfolding in the U.S. under the new administration, I wanted to launch this season of Our Womanity with powerful stories of women uplifting women around the world.
In this episode, I proudly welcome Habiba Corodhia Mohamed, Founder of WADADIA.
The journey of WADADIA began with a defining moment in Habiba C. Mohamed’s life. Initially dedicated to veterinary medicine, her path took a transformative turn during a routine visit to a farmer’s home. While searching for the farmer, she noticed a small face peeking from behind a house. When she approached, she discovered a four-year-old boy—disabled, tied up, and neglected. His only “crime” was being born disabled and out of wedlock. His teenage mother had been cast out by her family, exposing a deeper issue affecting marginalized women and girls.
This encounter sparked Mohamed’s commitment to social justice, leading her to transition from veterinary work to founding WADADIA, a nonprofit focused on women’s health and empowerment. What started as a small village-level support group for sex workers has grown into a national organization, providing holistic fistula care (6,000+ cases), support for SGBV survivors (1,500+), and services for PLHIV (3,500+).
Under Mohamed’s leadership, WADADIA is dedicated to restoring dignity through psychosocial support, reproductive health advocacy, and socio-economic empowerment—ensuring that the most vulnerable have the opportunity to thrive.
Learn more about Wadadia here.
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Transcript
Embracing Diversity for Women's Health
00:00:00
Speaker
I believe that improving women's health and their status in society to starts with me and you. It starts with each of us embracing the perfection in which we were created, regardless of our agenda, socioeconomic status or any other differences that the society may use to divide us.
00:00:17
Speaker
Only when we see each other as humans first, before any title or label, can we truly listen, understand and feel each other's pain, even when it is unspoken. When we create a world where dignity, justice and equality are not just ideals but lived realities, then we stop asking, who will help? Then we start saying, I will.
00:00:38
Speaker
Because really change begins when we choose to show up. Not as by standards, but as active participants in healing, empowering and restoring dignity.
Holistic Care for True Healing
00:00:48
Speaker
There are three critical areas that must be addressed to truly transform women's health.
00:00:54
Speaker
and society. First, it's looking at a woman holistically. I'm talking about holistic care and treatment. True healing is not just about survival, it is about dignity, hope, and life worth living. This can only happen when you focus on their physical, psychological, emotional, social, and even economic domain. The second aspect is looking at authentic sisterhood. I believe that one woman's strength is incredible, but the strength of women holding each other up and standing up for each other is really unstoppable.
00:01:30
Speaker
We cannot underestimate the power of compassion leadership and collective responsibilities. We must move from a band-aid solution to a long-term sustainable change. At Waddadia, we know that dignity is the foundation of transformation. Women thrive when their dignity is
Collective Strength Among Women
00:01:46
Speaker
upheld. when their voices are heard and when they have the power to shape their own futures. A woman's fight for dignity is not hers alone. It is the world's fight, our collective responsibility and our shared humanity. So I ask again, who will help? It starts with you and me. It starts with all
Habiba Karodi: Empowerment Advocate
00:02:06
Speaker
of us. Together we heal, we empower and restore dignity. Together we change the world.
00:02:12
Speaker
So welcome everybody to our womanity. I am so excited to have Ms. Habiba Karodi of Muhammad here virtually, but based in Malindi, Kenya. She is an amazing individual. And I think when you hear her story, you'll see why I have her on the podcast today. She founded an organization called Wada Dia. She's going to pronounce it correctly for me, but. It stands for Women and Development Against Distress in Africa, and it is a nonprofit organization that empowers marginalized women and girls by advocating for their biopsychosocial health and socioeconomic rights. The organization is grounded on three interrelated pillars of psychosocial support, reproductive health, and socioeconomic empowerment.
00:02:59
Speaker
Their target population includes low-income women, including female sex workers, which you'll hear a little bit about, survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, and women with female genital fistulas, adolescent girls, and young mothers. So thank you so much, Abiba, for being here today. I'm so excited to talk to you. Thank you, Rachel.
00:03:19
Speaker
Thank you for having me here and for creating this safe space in which you can be able to interact. And I look forward to having a productive conversation. Wonderful. So Habiba, tell our listeners a little bit about you and your story and how you started to you know develop a passion for this work for helping women.
00:03:38
Speaker
Habibi is a psychologist, a program specialist, a health system strengthening expert, and a social change advocate. I am very passionate about women's health and employment, and I've spent more than 15 years of my life designing and implementing programs that target the most marginalized women in Kenya. I am the founder of Women and Development Against Disrooms in Africa, WADADIA. Over the years, WADADIA has been able to heal, empower, and restore dignity to over 20,000 women and girls in Kenya. At WADADIA, we are all about her dignity.
00:04:15
Speaker
where her dignity stands for, kill, empower, and restore dignity, for women with child birth injuries, survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, and also women living with HIV at AIDS. Though an idea is at the core of this mission, I have also been privileged to work with other like-minded organizations such as the UNFPA, the One by One of the Worldwide Systema Fund,
00:04:39
Speaker
and the Fistla Foundation, all of which have a shared vision, a world where women are not just seen, but their head. Women are valued as human beings and are not just part of statistics.
00:04:54
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These organizations have helped me to grow and just affirm my conviction to show up.
Family Influence on Habiba's Values
00:05:00
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For I believe while we are serving humanity, we are serving the higher being, we are serving our creator. And this is something I'm committed to. However, most importantly, I will say Habibe is a mother of 18 incredible adults. Wow. Yes, you had it correct. Did you say 18 adults?
00:05:22
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Okay, tell me more about that. Where did these 18 come from? Yeah, I remember my mother were 18, incredible. Others, with the youngest of them, and who happens to be my only biological child, having turned 19 just recently. yeah Otherwise, the rest 17 are either of my steps, foster or adopted children. Wow. And I happen to come from a big polygamous family of 30 plus siblings. Wow. And despite our blood relationship,
00:05:54
Speaker
yeah We were raised with so many other people at our household. okay So my father, who was my mentor, my best friend, had this one open door policy, which indicated if anyone ever needed some extra love,
00:06:10
Speaker
a roof over their head or just a place to call home. They'll be able to show up in our home yeah and we'll receive them with open arms. We'll never question their identity or when they're going to live. So we used to stay with so many people, even my late husband. I only came to know that he was not my relative when he was proposing to me. I'm glad that I worked out that way.
00:06:37
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oh my gosh and he was showing up i was like okay i just cooked in here yeah yeah so you were used to a big family always a full house and a lot of people around sounds like a lot of love around which is so nice and exactly because my father will always say like the hand that gives is always better than the hands that takes and this is one of the values i impressed growing up and it really influences what i do today and who i am as a person That's incredible.
Career Shift to Advocacy
00:07:08
Speaker
That's really, really good thing to pass on to your children. So you, and before you were a psychologist, you used to be a veterinarian, right? Yes. I used to be a veterinarian for sure. and But for me, having come from this pastoral community, it was not strange.
00:07:27
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that I ended up in a veterinary school. Actually, my father took me to school to study v veterinary medicine. Okay. But I did my career when I left ah the veterinary school. The government was not employing, so I went straight into private practice. I was young by then. As I shared, I was very close to my dad, so I was really protected. ah You know, for my father, people will say, like, him and his girls,
00:07:52
Speaker
because I felt his daughters were really protected. and So we had this really close relationship for that. So my getting into private practice to me was my first real interaction with the really world and getting to feel like this is what happens in the society. And I'm just wondering, what will you do if one day you walk somewhere and you find a four year old boy actually tied on a leash behind the house, entirely isolated?
00:08:21
Speaker
Wow. So that's what you that's what you saw?
Motivation from a Neglected Child
00:08:24
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Yeah. Oh my goodness. Maybe we'll call the police. Maybe we'll call for people to come and help. Maybe you rescue them and take them to the police. Yeah. All those are viable options, but sometimes life has a way of shifting having spaces that we rarely imagined and at times that we least expect.
00:08:44
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Yeah. So as a veterinarian, though this one day actually that I went to visit one of my farmers who had reached out ah to request for artificial insemination. So I went a little bit later.
00:08:56
Speaker
than the farmer had expected me to be there. When I went there, there was nobody at home. So I had to organize myself, look for everything that I needed to ensure I service the animal on time. yeah But in the process of doing this work, I kept on seeing names first, just peep at me and it disappears, peep at me and it disappeared. So in my mind, I was like, okay,
00:09:19
Speaker
Don't they want to pay so they are hiding somewhere? You know this question that just happened. It's only the face you're seeing like, and nobody's showing up. So I said, okay, I'm not going to miss the conception timing because of this. But after that, I need to understand what is happening. Yeah.
00:09:33
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So after I finished with the animals having the animal curiosity got the bet of me and I rotated around the house and what I met broke my heart and it's years now I'm talking of years back then but up to now where any more time I talk about it it's still really really fresh because that young boy just four years old he was disabled he was tied on a rope actually there was a god of porridge put there for him which he couldn't reach because it was a little bit far from him i will imagine like maybe somebody just pushed it there because it was not a place where he could easily access it
00:10:10
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The boy had dedicated on himself and the the situation was sorry. and I really got traumatized just looking at the boy. yeah Of course, I went ahead, I cleaned the boy, I gave him the porridge that was there and I didn't know what else to do yeah in such a circumstance. I can't take him to my home, what else can I be able to do? yeah So I went home and shared the same experience with
Connecting with Marginalized Women
00:10:33
Speaker
my father. My father shared, told me like, mom, ah you need to understand and get used to this because this is the reality of the society we live in. wow But then it didn't make the situation any better at my age because I kept on seeing this boy and wondering like if it is the reality why hasn't this happened in my family? We have stayed here with so many people have never seen such a situation. So what is the dynamic around this?
00:11:01
Speaker
So I found myself getting getting into a mission impossible at that time, yeah which eventually I'm glad it turned out to be possible. I started asking, very curious when I'm meeting people, I will break actually the boundaries of confidentiality because i I was young, I didn't know anything about healthy boundaries in people's homes.
00:11:22
Speaker
So I asked, oh, I went to this home and then I found this, so what is the case? Where's the mother of this boy? What happened? What is the situation? That is the time I got to to learn about this heartbreaking story of this disabled boy. According to their family, which is not just a family thing because like ah the societal, more societal, because other people are saying they knew about it, but you are not doing anything about it.
00:11:48
Speaker
For that, despite the African culture being very socio-centric, where we show up for each other, it was strange that you were not seeing what was happening here. and But then the crime of the boy was too. The first crime, he was disabled, born disabled. And the second crime, actually, he was born out of wedlock and for that. so he was considered a double disgrace to this family. So the mother of the boy who had given birth earlier at 14 years old was considered also a disgrace and was sent out of her home, went to look for a living somewhere else. So when I heard about this story of the boy and understood what was happening, I was really curious to find out what happened to this girl because I'm imagining at my age and then I'm seeing a girl with
00:12:36
Speaker
14 years she was sent away from
Founding WADADIA: A Supportive NGO
00:12:38
Speaker
her parents so where is she now how is she so I started looking around and just finding about it and talking about it and eventually one thing led to another and I was able to meet this girl who happened to be working as a female sex worker in one of the neighboring counties of Kenya for there. So I got her to know her, I interacted with her. ah One thing led to another, I thank God that we are able to create a good rapport to just get attached to share openly with each other. But the more I listened to what she has been through just as a sex worker and also at a family level to get there really got my heart thinking and my mind to
00:13:22
Speaker
wanting to do something about it. So I wanted to know like, what is the story of these sex workers? All the time when I'm growing down, I've been socialized to understand these are promiscuous women right who choose just to sell themselves for money. They have neglected their families. At the family level, they are considered rebels. So I'm seeing something different. How rebel are my rebel at 14 years if you're sending me away from home?
00:13:47
Speaker
Where should I go to get the food? How am I going to survive this? And all those questions led in my mind really moving around, like asking myself question after question after question. Instead of getting answered, I'll get more questions in my heart. yeah So I continue wanting to listen and and to listen and to listen a little bit more.
00:14:05
Speaker
yeah So I started moving in those places that were considered hotspots for sex workers just to try to target. Mostly I was more keen on those young ones because of the first plan that I had made for that. Just trying to listen to most young ones, like understanding why they are there, what is their story. And I came upon various a story each story with its own pain, each story with its own struggles, each one of them very unique on its own. yeah I didn't know what to do. This is just a young veterinarian. Yeah, yeah but you cared and you were listening. That was the biggest, biggest step. Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
And I wanted to know more about them and their situations, and I dived right into it. I listened and listened to their life stories, their shared challenges, their heartfelt desires, and their unspoken call for help. The more I stayed present and listened, the more they opened up their hearts to me. If you talk to one person today, the next day you will find two or three or even more ready to pour their hearts.
00:15:06
Speaker
I felt all they needed was an unjudgmental ear and a shoulder to lean on. And I choose to be that ear. And that is how I came up with an idea to start an informal group for them. yeah And that's how we started meeting.
00:15:19
Speaker
yeah informally with these sex workers going there. When you were doing this up aside from your full-time job as a veterinarian. but Yes, which also I was managing my time because I went straight into private practice. Yeah. So the meeting we are doing them with them, we made an official meeting for for the sex workers. We started on a Monday.
00:15:42
Speaker
ah in the morning 11 a.m. and we put it ah between 11 and 1 that is a time for just our meeting just to share our different experiences. yeah But this is the time because you know most of the hot spots open in the evening that's when they go to do their plan. So I didn't want to interfere with their evening time. But before we started creating these team opportunities initially I will visit them in the evening their working time so that that is in the space where they are and just sit in and listen to that.
00:16:08
Speaker
yeah So yes, I was doing this once a week for them. Every Monday, just showing up, we'll be able to share the different experiences, the challenges that they are going through. They will learn from each other. I've been through a similar experience. This is how I handle it. And a lot of lessons were happening. And they helped me also to to know what society is really out, what life is really out out there, and what challenges people face. and Wow.
00:16:33
Speaker
But things happen in the ways we expect. Presidentally, I think it was almost one year down the line, if not nine months after we started this informal meeting, just chatting, talking about these issues. There's a project by the University of Nairobi. They came up and that is the first time like I heard about the University of Nairobi wanting to do an STD project okay in Western part of Kenya.
00:16:58
Speaker
And the project was all about education on HIV and prevention and also helping them to access condoms, access family planning, and the other option just to ensure they protect themselves. And then the positive thing about that project, it had some training and capacity building part of it that involved even some administration just to train them on the challenges faced by these women and how they can be able to support them. um Because one thing that happened was that most of the female sex workers undergo issues of sexual and gender-based violence. yeah You know the fact like you are a sex worker, you are out there selling yourself, people think like, okay, you have already put yourself, this is your business, so you cannot be sexually abused. But unfortunately, they are abused and in a very, very bad ways. They are not paid as expected.
00:17:48
Speaker
they are beaten up and a lot of gender-based violence actually happened to the female sex workers. Unfortunately, when they seek any legal redress, yeah the de administration and don't support them because of the stigma they made, all the issues associated to the kind of work they do. yeah But with this project, we started engaging with them, i just trying to support them. And that's what led to your organization? Yes.
00:18:11
Speaker
Okay, like ah one thing led to another and we had to formulate this arrangement from the informal group of female sex workers to register a community-based
Addressing Obstetric Fistula
00:18:20
Speaker
organization. We started with a support group of official registration with their social services community-based organizations and currently when a DA is an unprofit organization an NGO that is working in 16 counties of Kenya. Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing.
00:18:35
Speaker
So you did you have to stop taking care of animals? ah you Your sheer focus completely shift to women. Yes. So eventually when I was working with Waddadi and the in University of Nairobi, that program, I realized that as a veterinarian, I didn't have ah enough competence that I needed to effectively support my my target population. So first I was trained, I started some basic training as an HIV test counsellor.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. I was trained in that. And then I went back to class to do my, my diploma in social work and community development. And then that is how I ended up doing my first degree in psychology and my master's in psychology as things continue to do that. So in the process of implementing the program for the sex workers, I met actually one of the clients who had suffered for years with child birth injuries, specifically fistula. And that was the reason why she found herself as a sex worker. Because of the peaking, the smelling, the stigma at her household, she felt like she was completely neglected. She had lost herself, the team and herself worked. And because this is the kind of thing that are associated with the sex workers. So she thought this is the only way or the place they can find that acceptance.
00:19:57
Speaker
wow a kiss in the process of our sharing from another one of the sex workers we indicated like we wonder we have one of us so who is always smelling and this is our situation because we had some ha to yeah on hygiene and because when you're talking about hygiene so even them they thought it was an hygiene issue right unfortunately it wasn't just hygiene it was bigger than what they thought So when engaging with her, actually she opened up and she told me that since her ah last delivery, which was actually caused by sexual assault.
00:20:30
Speaker
she has been leaking for that. She has tried to seek medical attention. She has never gotten any help. So that is the reason why she's always having this ah false message. And just for our listeners who might not know about obstetric fistula, obstetric fistula happens for a woman who essentially she needs a C-section because the baby will not come out vaginally, but she's unable to get one. And those women end up with a hole between um the bladder and the vagina. So they're leaking urine constantly. And as Habiba said, it it does unfortunately cause quite an uncomfortable odor because of the constant urination, like urine on them. So that's how you ended up getting interested in in the world of obstetric fistula. And that's how our paths cross because of my work with obstetric fistula. hey Yes, exactly. Exactly. Because at that time I didn't know what it was completely. yeah I had no idea what it was too.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So as I started asking about it trying to know if anybody knows about that condition, anybody had an idea about it most people were not aware of what it was. yeah and took almost two years No, almost a year for that, if I'm not, a retir before my partner actually had traveled to Sierra Leone for a conference before he came back and shared with me that now he has an idea of a condition I've been talking about.
Success Stories of WADADIA
00:21:53
Speaker
yeah And then he even gave me the name that I think the condition you have been sharing about is called fistula, which is a child birth injury that is characterized by continuous leakage of urine or stool via the birth canals.
00:22:05
Speaker
and is associated with prolonged obstruction of labor. So he had gone there cut off of the UNFPA and they were interested in doing a project in Kenya that and That is the time I got completely interested in it and we had a mobilization for and for women with fistula and we realized she wasn't just their single case. The first time we were having a camp in Cacamega, general hospital organized by the UNFPA, I was shocked that after mobilization through both the media and the community level, we had
00:22:40
Speaker
a 36 bus full of women that we took to the hospital to get this last surgery. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. So it seems like such a rare thing, but there's so many women, unfortunately, who are living with fistulas. I want to ask you one last question because your work has been so incredible. Thank you for sharing your story. I think it's really special for people to hear that and thinking about that little boy. I hope that little boy was able to get you know some help as well. and But I wanted to ask you, like what do you think and is necessary now? If we kind of fast forward through all of this work that you've done and we come to today, what do you think women need in Kenya today? like what What do they need for their health or their status? Or where do you what sort of issues are you dealing with today?
00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. That is a good question. What do we need today? But before I answer that question, I still answer your initial question. You hope the women and the girls were supported. Yes, actually, that is that lady is one of my major success stories. ah and She managed actually to transition from sex work. I'll be supported her to do her ah secondary education, a certificate in social work, and later on, her parents impressed her after a certificate and took her to college to do her diploma actually in social work. So he's a really great story. That is amazing. And the little boy, was he okay? did Was he helped as well? Yeah, when the mother was impressed actually with the family, they started intervening for the boy together.
00:24:15
Speaker
I would want to be honest like I know he was supported because he went to one of the disabled schools but I'll be honest that have not followed up about his way of
Call for Collective Action in Kenya
00:24:23
Speaker
life. As long as he's not tied to the back of a shed anymore I think that's what our listeners want to know.
00:24:31
Speaker
yeah feel god day he was like what so day to go to a disable school and yeah that's great yeah It was really really one of my major heartwarming stories to see the transformation that happens when women show up for each other. That's amazing. So when you're talking about what I think ah women need in Kenya or what we can be able to do to transform the status of women within in Kenya or across the globe, I will say like supporting women, just changing the status of women starts with me and you.
00:25:07
Speaker
It starts with us actually impressing the perfection that God created us with, ignoring all the shortcomings or all the
00:25:27
Speaker
when we are able to show up for each other authentically, that is the only time we are able to listen and listen to hear what is not
00:25:45
Speaker
intervene for each other.
Conclusion and Recognition of Impact
00:25:48
Speaker
That's such a good message because that's doable, right? It's not like everybody has the gifts to start their own non-profit. You know, everybody has a different sort of different place, but they're doing their work, but just showing up for each other and not being divided and ignoring ignoring those those other societal sort of lies or things that would would divide us. I think that's that's wonderful advice. Well, thank you so much, Aviva. I know that you've given me hope and you've uplifted my feelings today for the status of women, and I know that you've done that for others who are listening. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. It was nice chatting with you and having this conversation today.