Power From Within

Joyce Wanjala Lay is her own role model. She has overcome almost impossible odds to get to where she is today, a mother, a politician, and a crusader for women’s rights.

- Cate Odera

Joyce Lay is not a woman to waste a moment. When an opportunity presents itself, she is likely to dive in, head first. For instance, at our first meeting at the Dari Restaurant in Karen, where we were to have an early dinner, she hugged me like an old friend would – and then went straight into telling me about her life. (She was the same when the people of Taita Taveta pointed out that she’d make a great leader – she went straight into politics.)

She is headstrong, smart and articulate, and carries herself with grace and poise. Her bodyguards mill about, but you barely see them; her assistants spring into action the moment she needs something, then disappear back into the shadows. She has a calming powerful aura about her; the kind of power that makes you feel relaxed, because everything is being handled.

Born in a small village in Mwatate in Taita Taveta in the coastal region of Kenya, Joyce Lay knew two things about her future: she knew that one day she would leave the village, and that one day she would build her mother a big, beautiful house.

What she didn’t know, however, as she daydreamed on her barefoot treks from school in search of firewood, was that one day she would be a sitting Member of Parliament, voicing the ideas, opinions and concerns of the people of Taita Taveta County.

‘Growing up, my sisters called me yellow, not just because of my fair complexion, but because I had this yellow dress which I wore every day,’ she tells me with a smile.

‘I would wash it and hang it to dry overnight, and wear it again the next morning. But no, no one ever told me I was beautiful … I only received those compliments much later and far away from village life.’