On September 26, the University of Maine School of Law hosted its thirteenth annual Justice for Women lecture at Hannaford Hall in Portland for an audience of approximately 150 people. The lecture featured Maria Omare and Juliet Mwongeli Muema, two disability rights activists from the Action Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Kenya, whose work centers on the rights of girls and women with disabilities.
The evening began with the presentation of the annual Courage is Contagious Awards to Fowsia Musse and Kim Moody, two powerful women who have shown great resilience and determination in the face of enormous challenges. The overall theme of the evening was hope for the future and for the well-being of girls and women with disabilities.
Fowsia Musse, Executive Director of Maine Community Integration in Lewiston, was born in Somalia and raised in Ethiopia. After years working in Lewiston to help girls and women, she suffered a horrific attack at an airport in the Somali region of eastern Ethiopia when she was back in Africa in 2022 visiting family. The attack resulted in the loss of one leg and she narrowly evaded death.
In accepting the award, Musse acknowledged others who showed courage in the aftermath of the attack that wounded her child and killed Musse’s sister. She said that the entire medical system in Maine, as well as in Ethiopia, her family, and an outpouring of support from community members, all enabled her to resume her work helping others. “It took everyone in the state of Maine for me to be courageous,” she said.
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Kim Moody, Executive Director of Disabilities Rights Maine, a federally mandated protection and advocacy system, also acknowledged the role of community in her acceptance speech. “It has been a privilege to work with this most passionate, brilliant group of lawyers and advocates,” she said, speaking about the organization she leads. Moody is a lifelong disability rights advocate, and now supervises a staff of 52 lawyers and advocates all working to help people with disabilities.
Maria Omare, from Kenya, began the Justice for Women lecture by describing herself in great detail for visually impaired attendees, thereby setting an inclusive tone right from the beginning of her remarks. Born premature, at seven months, Omare was so small at birth she could fit in her mother’s hand. She described her first memory, from when she was 6 years old. “I went to sleep as usual as a 6-year-old, and I woke up in a hospital in an emergency room with tubes in my nose, with machines beeping,” Omare recounted.
She spent many years in and out of hospitals and was considered a delicate child in her youth because of her ongoing health difficulties. However, she lived, and thrived, and became a mother – even though she knows that some people thought motherhood was out of the question for her. And now Omare is Program Director of The Action Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Kenya, with the mission of building “inclusive and resilient communities where children, women, and girls with disabilities can thrive.”
Omare took a little while to find her path in life. She began her career by volunteering at Kenyatta University in Kenya, explored a number of different paths, and eventually found her vocation in working with children with disabilities. After seeing how poorly children with disabilities were often treated, she decided to open a center to prove that it is possible to provide quality care. “I was tired of hearing that children with disabilities do not deserve better,” she said.
Today The Action Foundation has a team of 36 disability advocates. The organization’s work is centered around improving the conditions of girls and women with disabilities in Kenya through policy advocacy work and in negotiating better conditions for these same girls in Kenya’s school systems.
According to Omare, one in five people in Africa are estimated to have a disability, and girls with disabilities are 10 times more likely to experience violence in their lifetimes. In a country where infanticide is sometimes encouraged when parents have a child with a disability, Omare is passionate about the importance of the groundbreaking work that she does.
Juliet Muema is Program Officer of The Action Foundation’s Ibuka, a program to empower adolescent girls and young women. She also is a paracyclist, a mother, a wife, and has impaired vision – joined Omare on stage and shared her life journey as a disability rights activist. She explained that when she was in high school, she was diagnosed with a congenital condition and learned that she would slowly lose her vision.
Muema learned about paracycling by chance, when she was living at Kenya’s Society for the Blind, and happened to meet a paracyclist who was also vision impaired. She also tried paracycling, and took to the sport, and eventually qualified for the 2024 Paris Paralympics. However, Muema said that due to the misappropriation of funds by Kenya’s government, she was unable to get to the Olympics this year. She hopes to attend the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Games as a paracyclist representing Kenya.
The Justice for Women Lecture Series is an endowed series which was established in 2011 with the support and leadership of Catherine Lee of Lee International. Each year, a distinguished speaker or speakers from the developing world presents a public lecture intended to further a global conversation about justice for women and girls.
