Nkatha Gatuma is an achiever no matter which way you look at it. Most people know her as a renowned gospel singer and songwriter with two albums to her name, but she is also an award-winning humanitarian whose organization, Woman of Paradise, spearheads the fight against Female Genital Mutilation in Kenya. This is in accordance with the organization’s bold mission, “Empowering the weak to receive strength for a better tomorrow.” For her efforts and contribution to the women of Africa, Nkatha recently received the 2009 Humanitarian of the Year Award from the  Association of Kenyans in the Diaspora. She has written a book, Keeping Down the Dust in God’s House, which is in publishing and almost ready to be received by audiences all over the world. She is an educator, a speaker and a role model to many young African women in the United States, the United Kingdom and her home country, Kenya.  She is educated and studious.

None of these achievements have affected her humble but powerful outlook on life, and she does not draw from them when asked to define herself. Nkatha, in her own words, is “a resilient woman. I’m able to bounce back quickly when I see some setback or a hurdle in front of me. I’m not the type that sits and mourns about it for ten years. I also believe that I’m very humble and simple. I believe that because of the way I love people, I should be very comfortable and able to interact with people at all levels of life. I’ve met the elite – presidents and CEOs of companies in the states, in England too. But I am still that girl that will really sit properly with a person with a humble background in their community and share their plate of food comfortably, and this person would not feel uncomfortable around me because that’s how my mum raised me. I’m also very aggressive and very, very optimistic. I don’t believe in people who are pessimistic.” Most of all, as with all virtuous women, Nkatha loves the Lord.

Born in Tigania, Kenya, to an army doctor and an educator who “is the only human being that I know will not turn her lights off without praying for me,” Nkatha is the first of three children. She grew up in the city, raised by staunch Christians in a home where going to church was a must every Sunday. “There was no other option,” she says, laughing, but adds that she is thankful for that foundation because it is what has made her who she is today. She always knew that her destiny was to be a singer. She joined choirs in church and even started her own choir. “Most of the people in the choir, I didn’t know what their destiny was but I knew mine was to sing,” she says. And so she pursued it.

Nkatha knew within her that she was on a journey towards big things and refused to settle for a cheaply-made album in the then fledgling Kenyan music industry. So she took some time away from everyone and went to a place known as Katoloni in Eastern Kenya to fast and pray. Her prayers were not in vain. In fact, they were answered in a miraculous way. “When I came back from the fast, I met a friend of mine – and she always wants to be anonymous – [who] told me that when I had gone for prayer and fasting, God spoke to her to give me 200,000 Kenya shillings to go and pay for a recording of my album in Johannesburg, South Africa. This lady paid for everything.”

Nkatha went to Johannesburg, recorded her first album and began to tour Europe, performing her music.  Beautiful music videos were shot in Greenwich, London and Lake Nakuru, Kenya.

However, music was not it for Nkatha. She felt there was something more. “I had this passion to do charity work in a developed country. I wanted to understand what it feels like from a donor’s perspective. I came to the States visiting as a musician and I heard about Heifer International. They had a vacancy and I applied for the job.” Out of 120 applicants from different parts of the world, Nkatha was chosen for this job. Her experience with Heifer International exposed her more to hunger, poverty, HIV/AIDS, suffering and issues of women.

A major moment in Nkatha’s life came while she was working for this organization. “One day in June 2006,” she narrates, “I was seated in my office and I received lots of emails from my friends in Kenya, the States and England. They said they were attaching a document that was published by the BBC. This document was published about an issue in Tigania, Meru, where I come from. There was a mutilation shock, and there was a picture of a beautiful woman holding a little girl. A girl in Tigania had circumcised herself because of stigma, and because she was tired of being teased and being called names by other girls in the community. Her mom was crying in the picture and said she had refused her daughter to go through female circumcision. The girl cut off her genitals and haemorrhaged to death.”

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