Let this be the decade we demand respect, dignity and our rights

I am certain that you have seen endless reviews of the year that was, so I will not bore you with another. What I will do, albeit briefly, is make a list of a few issues that we as a country ought to look into in the coming decade.

First, I think we are now mature enough to know what kind of leadership we truly need. We are a traumatised country; there is nothing our leaders have not done to us, there are no tactics and tricks they have not pulled on us and nothing surprises us any more. In the new decade, I hope that we finally shed off the obsession with voting for characters who have no interest in our well-being – that we may choose our leaders wisely and, most importantly, that unimportant things like tribalism and clannism will not come in the way of a good decision.

I also think that this should be the decade when we finally hold our government agencies accountable. As I write this, I am thinking of what a sad Christmas it must have been for the family of Mariam Kighenda and her daughter Amanda Mutheu, who died when their car slipped into the Likoni channel. We were, as a country, collectively outraged as mother and daughter lay on the ocean bed for two weeks before their bodies were retrieved.

I hope that this decade our anger will be put to action, that we will demand more of a government that takes so much from us – for nothing. I hope we will call public officials to account and demand better health services, education, roads and accountability in how our money is spent.

This new year would have been a defining time for Ivy Wangechi, who would have graduated from medical school and started an exciting career in medicine, if she had not been so brutally murdered by her boyfriend. I also constantly think about Sharon Otieno and her unborn baby, as much as I think of Monicah Kimani, and many other women who have been murdered in cold blood. I am also thinking about 24-year-old Winnie Wambua, an arresting beauty who is currently nursing serious burn wounds after her former husband scalded her with a steaming mixture of hot oil and water.

I hope this will be the decade that we tackle violence against women, that we finally stop blaming women who find themselves in such situations, and teach our boys – all of them – that women are to be loved and respected, period.

The cancer menace is with us, it is no longer a myth, but now fast hurtling into a national crisis. This must be decade that we achieve universal health care. I hope that this will be the decade that poor cancer patients will not give up too soon, because they cannot access proper health care. That this will be the decade that we accord cancer patients from low-income cadres the dignified treatment they deserve and have a right to, and the hope to live after beating cancer, without having to strain their families and friends.

Still on matters health, I hope that this will be the decade that we finally lift the lid on mental health. That we will stop pretending to be a happy country while battling depression and anxiety and entertaining suicidal thoughts. I hope that we will finally start to discussing mental health and openly talk about the suicides among us.

This had better be decade when we tell our young men that it is okay to feel sad, dejected and disappointed in life, and to give them a chance to talk and work it out. This must be the decade that we stop telling our depressed young men to “man up” and allow them to feel their emotions, no matter how strange that may seem for some of us.

Finally, I hope that this will be the decade that we will do away with this nonsense of over-glorifying exams and exam results and instead focus on the wellbeing of the children. That we will stop this national obsession with grades, marks and “national” schools and allow children, for once, to enjoy school and learning. That children in this decade will be respected and loved by their parents in spite of the grade they bring home.

Here’s to a blessed new decade!

Ms Chege is the director of the Innovation Centre at Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications;