In recognition of Father's Day, professor Esther Ngumbi was featured in another NPR, Goats and Soda, opinion piece. In the article, she discusses the importance of her father, Harrison Ngumbi's defiance of a Kenyan cultural belief systems about educating daughters and its importance.
"Thank you, Dad, for standing up for your girls.
In rural Kenya, where we grew up, fathers were not expected to educate their daughters. Girls were to be married off – and not pursue an education and a career. The value of a girl was measured by her dowry, not a diploma.
jou [sic]
My father, Harrison Ngumbi, was different.
He and my mom had five children — one son and four daughters.
As he would say to us, "I choose to educate you, my girls."
His peers would ridicule him. They'd ask why he was wasting his money on school fees for his daughters when they'll just get married and leave...
He says he respected girls and wanted his daughters to have a future. Perhaps he was influenced by his own mother — a single mom who worked relentlessly to raise four boys.
"It doesn't matter what my peers think," he told me. "My girls are my priority, and I will do everything to ensure you have an education. I want to have future professors and doctors in the family."