Jane Nyokabi Gitau
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Jane Nyokabi Gitau, popularly known as Mama County, is the Kiambu County Coordinator of Groots Kenya Programs and Activities. She is also the Chairperson of the Kiambu County Women in Entrepreneurship Association a member of GROOTS Kenya Board and recently was the treasurer of Groots Sacco. She is from Gatundu South, Kiganjo Ward, Gitare Village, where we have our women's enterprise centre. She joined Groots Kenya in 2003 during the HIV/AIDS pandemic through Gatundu Mwirutiri Women Initiative, a CBO that was formed as an intervention in response to people affected and infected by HIV/AIDS. She was then trained as a home-based caregiver and Community Health Volunteer. She has been the Chairperson of the Gatundu District Home-based Care Alliance, whose objective was to mainstream caregiving and address discrimination against caregivers; she was also a mother mentor for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs)) and the youth, a Community Land and Property Watchdog member as an ombudsperson, where they safeguard women and girls' rights to inheritance as a paralegal.
Jane advocates for women's rights and is a GBV responder, especially on SGBV and women's land rights issues. She was involved in the initial implementation of the Community Resilience Fund (CRF) project in Kiambu and, as a farmer, has practised Climate Smart Agriculture and climate change mitigation solutions. She is a community trainer and organizer for development projects and activities and a campaigner for women's leadership and support for upcoming women politicians in her community. Her Focal Point and her empowerment were made easy through exposure, training and workshops, meetings and peer exchanges, and enlightenment on national and international laws and policies, which made it easy for her participation in the drafting of the 2010 Kenya Constitution and in the local, national, and international forums, meetings, workshops, and conferences on HIV/AIDS and the CSW, land rights, climate change, in USA, India, and Africa.
She has also been involved in strengthening the home-based care alliance in South Africa, India, Zambia, Malawi, and Ethiopia, and exchanges in India, Uganda, and Nigeria. She is also an SDG champion, where she trained in Brooklyn and participated in the SDGs launch in 2016. She has been a member of Gitare Health Center BOM since 2003 as the Treasurer to date and used to mentor upcoming BOMs on good governance and record keeping. She is a member of school PTAs and was once a Gitare Sec School BOM member, representing the PTA of the same school. She is a peace committee member, Uwezo board member representing women's groups and her ward, and for the last six years, she has been the Treasurer of Kimaratia Coffee Farmers Coop Society Ltd and a member of Gatundu South Banana Farmers Coop Society under the National rural inclusive growth project (NARIGP) project where she’s the leader of a Common Interest Group called Gitare Gachika Banana Producers group under the Ministry of Agriculture.
In GROOTS Kenya, she has been mentoring new regions and induction of champions, and mapping processes for new projects nationally. She is the current Chairperson of Gatundu Mwirutiri Women Initiative (GAMWI) since 2008 and secretary of Gatundu Fresh Farms, an affiliate of GAMWI for the entrepreneurial and marketing of our agricultural products. GROOTS Kenya has been the best thing that has ever happened to her and she is passion-driven to realize the inclusivity of women in leadership and empowered and transformed communities.
