Women Urged to “midwife” New Generation to Transform Africa’s Political Landscape at International Bible Conference

Nairobi, 07 October, 2025 / 5:16 PM

The Vice Chancellor (VC) of the Kenya-based Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) has called on women to “midwife” a new generation of leaders capable of transforming Africa’s political, social, and economic landscape.

In his opening address at the October 6-8 International Conference on the Bible, organized under the theme, “Bible, women, and societal issues within Africa,” CUEA VC, Fr. Prof. Stephen Mbugua Ngari, reflected on Africa’s prevailing challenges, including conflicts and migration, and described the role of women on the continent as “salvific.”

Fr. Mbugua reflected on the biblical role of women in salvation, saying, “We need to now transform, and we need to midwife, as women, the new generation that is going to change the landscape and the socio-economic, peace, and faith factors in our situation today.”

In the Church, he added on Monday, October 6, during the event held at CUEA main campus in Nairobi, “we have religious women who are very active. These are the subtle, these are the soft voices that continue to speak to society.”

He acknowledged with appreciation the women’s engagement in sectors such as health, education, social work, and other affirmative actions that he said “will bring and make society grow, and we need to celebrate them in this place as we move on.”

With their engagement in the sectors, Fr. Mbugua said, “We are not starting at point zero, but we are starting at a higher level and moving into the second action-based position and recommendations that would go to all women in Africa.”

Scheduled to end on Wednesday, October 8, the three-day event has been organized by CUEA, Catholic Biblical Centre for Africa and Madagascar/Nairobi (CEBAM), and the Institute of Missiology Aachen – Germany.

The event has brought together scholars who are to present on various topics, including “Young Women and Leadership in the Bible: Lessons for Contemporary Africa,” “Women's Stories in Mark (5:21-16:20) Intercultural Narratives, and Biblical Teaching on Women and Marriage.”

Other topics include “The Sage Woman: Reading Proverbs." 31:26-31 in an African context, “His or Her – Story (Gen 27:1-17)? An Afrocentric Appreciation of Women in the Book of Genesis,” and “African Women’s Interpretations of Scripture: A Hermeneutic of Resistance and Hope,” among others.

In his opening address, Fr. Mbugua said, “I’m happy that there will be a hybrid of ideas that will come that will support African women.”

The member of the Clergy of Kenya’s Nakuru Catholic Diocese went on to recognize some of the women who have played a critical role in transforming society in the past, including Kenya’s Wangari Maathai and South Africa’s Miriam Makeba, who fought against apartheid.

“We also have many other women religious and educators whose voices do not hit the media or the books, but they are significant voices that tell about how society should be and, in their ways, shape the psyche, the attitudes, and the opinions of African leadership in various manners,” he said.

Fr. Mbugua further highlighted factors that continue to suppress the voices of many women in Africa, including “the cultural variables and patterns” that society has assigned to each gender.

“We also have the stereotypes that sometimes are floated there, and we hope that this conference is going to address such issues so that we can change the paradigm, that people can think differently about women and about how much they can perform in the context of the African situation,” he said.

Fr. Mbugua said that he finds it delightful that, over the last 20 or 30 years, there has been such a significant change in the landscape regarding women's opinions and what they can achieve.

Reflecting on the number of women leaders in Kenya, the CUEA VC noted that their representation now surpasses that of many developed countries and is yielding tangible results, particularly within the nation’s universities.

He also observed that the growing number of women enrolling in universities reflects a shifting landscape, one that signifies more women are preparing academically and professionally to assume leadership roles in the Church, in society, and in other key sectors.

According to Fr. Mbugua, transforming the political landscape and socioeconomic structures could signal change “in the many issues” Africa continues to face.

Drawing a biblical parallel, he noted that just as Esther played a pivotal role in delivering the people of Israel from destruction, Africa today faces similar challenges that call for courageous and transformative leadership.

“We see many countries that are at war; we see a lot of conflict, ethnic, political, and other fronts, that bring the human person in Africa to become an endangered species,” he said.

He emphasized the need for women to salvage the African continent “because it has been realized that even we men have not been able to govern our African continent in the right way, and that is why we have such conflict, lack of peace, and lack of growth.”

Fr. Mbugua urged women to extend their nurturing and motherly care toward addressing the growing challenge of migration, which he attributed to the persistent wars and conflicts largely driven by men.

“We need your intervention as mothers to ensure that we are not having these immigrations; we are creating an environment that is enabling in our societies to ensure that nobody crosses the seas to go to the North, die in the seas, and suffer in the North before they become recognized and sometimes even repatriated back to their own countries with much more suffering and much more stigma among them,” he said.

He continued, “faith, leadership, and gender must form the part and the issues that are going to be fronted to change our African continent into a peaceful, faith-based, and prosperous continent.”

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