Share Your Confidence Stories With #AlwaysStandUpKe

I have always loved water. I don’t know if it’s the peace that comes with floating on your back in a pool or in the ocean, or the cleansing nature of water that draws me to it. As a child, I looked forward to swimming sessions, not to play with other kids but to submerge myself in the silence that comes with being underwater. I even thought that perhaps I could sim competitively and put in tonnes of practice hours. Water felt like home.

Things changed as I grew older and started my periods. I was so self conscious about it that I hardly got into the water. It didn’t help that my periods were not regular and so the thought of making a mess mortified me to the point that I began to stay away from water bodies.

I gained a bit more confidence when I was 14 and got back to swimming. This was however, cut short after I had an ‘accident’ in the water. My biggest fear had come true and it was quite an awful experience. Granted, only two girlfriends and a female teacher knew but just the fact that it had happened made me never want to enter the water again.

I hated periods because I felt they took away something important from me. It just wasn’t swimming I stayed away from but anything that put me in the spotlight as well. I was very outgoing but my personality would literally shift when I was on my periods. I would intentionally make myself small because I was so paranoid that I would have another ‘accident’. Needless to say, it shook my confidence and I didn’t do as much as I would have liked.

As I have grown older, I’ve regained my confidence with the help of some amazing women I have met along the way. Being a girl is difficult especially when you want to stand out because the notion of a confident woman is sneered at. In the past, girls were expected to be seen and not heard. Presently, girls are expected to be seen and heard, but not too loudly. There are set limits to the things that girls can achieve and this kind of atmosphere is detrimental to girls as they are fed the idea that they can only achieve so much.

In response to this, Always has launched the “Stand Up” initiative in Kenya under the hashtag #AlwaysStandUpKe. The initiative seeks to encourage the Kenyan girl child to stand up for her dreams and aspirations. Kenya’s first marine pilot Elizabeth Marami together with Kenya women’s basketball captain Silalei Owour will work together with the Always brand to share their stories of how they stood up to make their dreams come true and to encourage Kenyan girls to share their #AlwaysStandUpKe moments.

In 2014, Always started the global #LikeAGirl campaign highlighting how the phrase to do something “like a girl” had become a negative one. Earlier this year, the next phase of this campaign began globally with the creation of the Always Global Confidence Teaching Curriculum, a program that incorporates the latest research on confidence and will benefit millions of girls around the world.

Marami and Silalei will be sharing their stories on being confident and achieving your goals here.  You too can share your story and take part in the making of the #AlwaysStandUpKe diary by writing what you stood up for and what you believe in on the Always Girls Facebook page.