.png?sfvrsn=6d0e27cd_1 "Partnership for Change - v7 (1)")
Mumbi Macharia wrote and performed 'Dear World Leaders' for the official side event 'Rise, Respond, Recover' at the High Level Political Forum on the Sustainable Development Goals, hosted by the Government of Estonia and co-organized by PMNCH, UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO and the International Health Partnership for UHC 2030 (UHC2030).
Dear World Leaders by Mumbi Macharia
They say you are on the menu if you are not seated at the table
Allow me to introduce myself
I am the girls in the pictures you commission of abject poverty
I know you might think it’s poetic
But I assure you our lives are not an aesthetic
Perhaps you didn’t know that I am the girl staying home from school because I don’t have pads
My future, they took that
I am the girl walking to school with a stomach heavier than my book bag
This is my life
I am no different from the girl you heard about being sold off at 12 as a wife
I am not a charity case
But that’s the picture you get
I see I am my grandmother’s legacy
I come from a lineage of matriarchal societies
Rainmakers, healers, warriors especially
My mother and grandmother now say they hope I forgive themFor bringing me into a world where my very existence is a transgression
Where fighting for justice is mundane
And violence against my sisters is just another Monday
This is to you, our world leaders
The ones who have our trust are less than few
You made these promises you said you’d pursue
So why does the mortality rate and gender based violence still have the longest queue
It’s strange
So this is to let you know that if you want to buy my vote, I don’t want notes, I just want change
Love is a verb
So I don’t just want you to talk about it
I need you to be about it in every sector
Health, economy, climate, communityThis is your opportunity, in every room
I need you to put my sisters first
Even the ones still in the womb
We’ve come a long way
So I pray that the effects of the pandemic are not receding
We are pleading
Do not leave us behind
We are just asking for our human rights
The last time I checked we are just as human as you are, right?
We have options, but no choices
Opinions, but no voices
It’s time, it’s been time, to rise, refocus, recover
There is no time to lose.
The event included the launch of the advocacy and accountability brief, 'Rise, Respond, Recover. Renewing progress on women's, children's and adolescents' health in the era of COVID-19'. Please find the full report, a link to the event's recording and more here.