As a girl growing up in rural Kenya, Kakenya Ntaiya learned from an early age that her future had already been decided for her.作为一个在肯尼亚农村长大的女孩，卡肯尼亚·内塔亚很小的时候就知道，她的未来，已提前为她埋下了注脚。
By age 5, according to local Maasai custom, she would be engaged to be married. By 13, she would go through female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and leave school to become a wife and mother. Her days would be filled with chores, fetching water, collecting wood, cooking, and cleaning. And she would be expected to raise her daughters to follow the same path.根据当地马塞族的习俗，她到了五岁就会订婚。十三岁时，她会经历女性割礼，并离开学校，继而成为一名妻子和母亲。她的生活将被家务、打水、捡柴、做饭和打扫填满。她也会被期望培养她的女儿走上同样的道路。
But Kakenya had a different plan for her future—and the future of her community.但卡肯尼亚对她（和她所在社区）的未来有决然不同的规划。
She was determined to stay in school and become a teacher. At age 13, when she was about to be pulled out of school and undergo FGM/C she made a deal with her father: She would submit to cutting, but only if she could continue with her schooling. Her father agreed.她决心留在学校，成为一名教师。在她十三岁即将被迫退学并接受割礼时，她与父亲做了个交易：她接受割礼，但前提是能继续上学。她的父亲同意了。
It’s hard to overstate the courage it took for Kakenya to defy local traditions. While FGM/C has been illegal in Kenya since 2001, the practice persists in rural communities because many families believe it will improve their daughters’ chances of finding a husband. Kakenya endured the painful cutting ceremony, but she was able to avoid marriage and stay in school. She won a full scholarship to attend college in the United States and went on to earn a PhD in education.卡肯尼亚挑战当地传统习俗的这份勇气，难得且珍贵。虽然自2001年以来，割礼在肯尼亚就已经是非法行为，但这种做法在农村地区仍然存在，原因是许多家庭认为这会让他们女儿更容易找到丈夫。卡肯亚忍受了痛苦的割礼仪式，但她也因此得以避免结婚，继续留校读书。她赢得了赴美读大学的全额奖学金，并一直向上攻读，最终获得了教育学博士学位。
She founded Kakenya’s Dream, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to educating girls and ending harmful traditional practices like child marriage. She returned to her home village to work with the Maasai elders in her community. She convinced them that girls—not just boys—should have access to education. In 2009, she opened Kakenya’s Center for Excellence, a school for girls built on land donated by the elders.她创立了“卡肯尼亚之梦”，这是一个致力于女童教育和废除童婚等传统恶习的国际非营利性组织。她回到家乡的村落，与社区里的马赛族长老们一起工作。她说服了他们，女孩（而不仅仅是男孩）理应有接受教育的机会。2009年，她开办了卡肯尼亚卓越中心，这是一所建在长老们所捐赠的土地上的女子学校。
Kakenya’s school enrolls girls starting at age 10, when parents are likely to start pulling their daughters out of school to get married. Students get housing, uniforms, books, and a strong education. In return, parents agree to not have their daughters get married or undergo cutting while they are in school. As part of Kakenya’s program, she also runs programs for Maasai boys and community members, helping them understand how child marriage and genital cutting harm girls and their entire community.卡肯尼亚的学校招收十岁及以上的女孩，（因为）从这个年龄开始，父母可能会让女儿辍学结婚。学生们可以得到住宿、校服、书籍和良好的教育。作为回报，父母同意在女儿上学期间不让她们结婚或接受割礼。作为卡肯尼亚项目的一部分，她还为马赛族男孩和社区成员开展项目，帮助他们了解童婚和割礼对女孩和整个社区的伤害。
“All of it is about breaking the silence and that has really helped us to break through all these cultural barriers that hinder women,” Kakenya said.“所有这些都是为了打破沉默，而这也确实帮助我们打破了所有这些桎梏女性的文化阻碍，”卡肯尼亚说。
Graduates of Kakenya’s school have gone on to college in Kenya and study abroad. Like Kakenya, many return to help their communities. One recent graduate now studying nursing in Australia, for example, used her school break to volunteer at a local health clinic in Kenya.卡肯尼亚学校的毕业生已经进入了肯尼亚的大学，或是出国留学。像卡肯尼亚一样，许多人返回家园帮助他们的社区。例如，一位正在澳大利亚学习护理的应届毕业生，利用大学假期回到肯尼亚，在当地的一家卫生诊所担任志愿者。
I first heard about Kakenya through Melinda when she was working on her book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. Her story is a powerful example of how one person’s act of bravery can spark dramatic change not only in their own life but also in hundreds of other lives.我第一次听说卡肯尼亚是通过梅琳达，当时她正在撰写《女性的时刻：如何赋权女性，改变世界》一书。卡肯尼亚的故事是一个强有力的例子，说明了一个人的勇敢行为不仅可以为自己的生活，而且也可以为成百上千的人的生活带来巨大的改变。
Kakenya’s experience fighting for change is also a reminder of the work that needs to be done to improve the lives of women and girls. Over the last two decades, our foundation has been dedicated to reducing inequity around the world—in health, education, and opportunity. But it became increasingly clear to us that something was standing in the way of these efforts: In many ways, women and girls were being undervalued.卡肯尼亚努力求变的经历也提醒我们，要改善妇女和女孩的生活，还有很多工作要做。在过去的二十年里，我们的基金会一直致力于减少世界各地在健康、教育和机会方面的不平等现象。但我们越来越清楚地看到，实现这些努力的道路上存在着一些阻碍：在许多方面，妇女和女孩的价值被低估了。
That’s why in 2020, our foundation officially launched a Gender Equality Division to further our commitment to gender equality outcomes across the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The new division is working to ensure gender equality is incorporated across the foundation’s work. Gender equality initiatives include women’s economic empowerment, women in leadership, data and evidence, and innovation in science and technology to improve women’s health. As part of this work, we have supported the Child Marriage Learning Partners Consortium and continue learning more to fill gaps in knowledge of child marriage, its drivers, and solutions.因此，在2020年，我们的基金会正式成立了性别平等部门，更进一步地致力于实现联合国可持续发展目标中的性别平等目标。这个新部门正在努力确保将性别平等贯穿于基金会的各项工作之中。性别平等倡议包括女性经济赋权；存在于领导力、数据和证据中的女性；改善女性健康的科技创新。作为这项工作的一部分，我们支持“童婚学习伙伴联盟”，并继续学习，以填补关于童婚、以及其驱动因素和解决方案方面的知识空白。
When you look closely at the data, you see how gender inequality complicates the fight against poverty and disease. Just consider the impact of COVID-19. The pandemic has had an intense impact on women. New data shows that the pandemic has led to disruptions to women’s health services, job losses in sectors where women are overrepresented, and a sharp increase in caregiving needs and other unpaid work.仔细观察这些数据，你就会发现性别不平等是如何复杂化了消除贫困和疾病的斗争。想想新冠的影响吧。这场大流行对妇女产生了巨大的影响。新的数据显示，大流行已经导致了女性保健服务的中断、女性占比较多的部门出现失业、以及护理和其他无偿工作需求的急剧增加。
The pandemic has created new challenges for the girls at Kakenya’s school, too. During the COVID lockdown, Kakenya’s school was forced to shut down and the girls were sent home. For Kakenya, the pandemic was a critical test of her school’s curriculum. She had taught her students how to be independent and stand up for themselves. But when they returned home for many months, the girls would be under pressure from their families to get married, often out of economic hardship that was exacerbated by the pandemic.这场大流行也给卡肯尼亚学校的女孩们带来了新的挑战。在新冠封锁期间，卡肯尼亚的学校被迫关闭，女孩们被送回家。对卡肯尼亚来说，这场大流行是对她学校课程的一次关键考验。她曾教导学生如何独立，如何坚持自己的立场。但女孩们回家几个月后，她们就会面临来自家庭的催婚压力，这份压力往往是出于因疫情加剧而导致的经济困难。
Early pregnancy and marriage are on the rise around the world and it’s still a massive problem in Kenya. Fortunately, at Kakenya’s school, all the girls returned. None had undergone FGM/C. None had gotten married.早孕和早婚在世界各地都呈上升态势，这在肯尼亚仍然是一个严重的问题。幸运的是，（封锁结束后）所有女孩都回到了卡肯尼亚的学校。没有人经历割礼。也没有人结婚。
“This community is being transformed by the girls that have gone through our school,” Kakenya said.卡肯尼亚说：“我们学校培养的女孩们正在改变这个社区。”