"Phyllis Omido"

Dubbed the ‘East African Erin Brockovich’, Phyllis Omido wasn’t an activist when she went to work at a Kenyan lead smelter. But when her breast milk made her baby sick, she began gathering evidence on the smelter’s damaging health effects.

["]I approached the owners and told them we couldn’t operate the smelter. I proposed that we find land in an open area with less of a human population and ensure with measures to keep the lead in the area we were occupying. At the same time, about three months into my work, I had a baby and was breastfeeding him. He started falling sick, and I had to stay in hospital for almost a month...That was the worst time because we were not prepared for arrest. All these people in the community had faith that what we were doing was just. In 2012, 17 of us were arrested. We slept in the police cells for 16 hours and then were arraigned in court the next morning. The others were charged with illegal gathering while I was charged with inciting violence. So the charge sheet read ‘Phyllis Omido and 16 others’. We weren’t prepared and I hadn’t the money to bail us out.

By the time we were acquitted the situation in the community was bad. The women had started getting miscarriages at seven months. The babies would just pass out because of very thick, toxic smoke inhaled all day and all night.  We petitioned the senate committee on health which was very successful. The senate committee came down and we went with human rights watch. The senate committee asked for the smelter to be shut down permanently["].