It was a celebration in honour of women by Kotex at the Radisson Blu. This is in line with the hashtag #PeriodorNotSheCan campaign where Kotex believes that a period should never get in the way of a woman’s progress.
The campaign is meant to celebrate women who have demonstrated passion, motivation and inspired many while they break barriers to achieve their own victory and success.
Adelle Onyango during her speech she said,'' It's a beautiful time to be a woman an incredible time to be an African woman''.
She continued:
“The incredible achievements of each one of these honorees are a testament to our resilience! Our strength! And our awesomeness! We go through unrelenting discomfort every month; we bleed every month, and guess what? We achieve every month!”
Sharon Mundia, a mother one took issue with the fact that women have been looked down upon since time immemorial.
“So I’ve heard 'No, you can’t!” quite a bit in my lifetime. For instance, I remember growing up I was given a hard time for wanting to climb trees but the boys had a free pass. Or that I shouldn’t be too aggressive in sports, I should calm down a little.”
She also revealed, "'We do have a long way to go and a lot of things to unlearn any message that goes towards building the empowered woman’s narrative are something that I want to be a part of. That woman won’t live tethered to someone else’s idea of how powerful or how outspoken or diverse they can be."
She further added:
“Women have been undermined and put into a status quo by being told not to be better than the men i.e. advice on how to make it in this man’s world, how to keep fit, be great but not too great. Be successful, but not outside of a certain scope. Be outspoken, but don’t ruffle feathers etc.”
According to the 2014 report “World survey on the role of women in development,” the causes and underlying drivers of unsustainability and gender inequality are deeply interlocked making economic gender equality unachievable for another 170 years.
This is despite a study that shows equality for women in the labor force would add $28 trillion to the global economy by 2025.
Adelle and Sharon also urged women to speak out, louder than before about the issues holding them back, by sharing their unique stories so that every woman will know here's is a worthy story.
