Berkley Center

Background: Sister Bridgita Samba Mwawasi is a member of Georgetown University’s Women Faith Leaders Fellowship 2024-2025 cohort. A member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Mombasa and a journalist by training, Sr. Mwawasi has extensive experience in leadership and administration, public relations, community organizing, advocacy, and civic and media education. She has worked for associations of women religious both at the national and regional level. She is passionate about helping women and girls receive an education and achieve economic independence, as well as ending gender-based violence and related issues.

Sr. Mwawasi spoke with Luisa Banchoff via Zoom on September 18, 2025. In their conversation, she reflected on growing up in a religiously diverse community, about her journey to the religious life, and her decision to pursue journalism. She also shared about her experience working for the Association of Sisterhood of Kenya and the Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa. The conversation culminated in a discussion of Sr. Mwawasi ’s experience in the Women Faith Leaders Fellowship, including her capstone project.

Biography: Sister Bridgita Samba Mwawasi is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Mombasa, an indigenous congregation of Catholic sisters founded in Kenya. She currently serves as secretary general of the Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa, where she oversees the planning, organizing, fundraising, and coordination of programs for women religious across ten countries. Previously, she worked for Mwenge Catholic University as well as the Association of Sisterhoods of Kenya’s Justice and Peace Commission. She is a professional journalist with experience in human rights education, public relations, and community organizing.

To begin, can you tell us where you are from?

My name is Sister Brigitta Samba Mwawasi. I belong to the Sisters of St. Joseph in the Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa, Kenya. I was born in the same diocese, in Taita-Taveta County. I come from a large family. We were nine children growing up.

I was brought up in a Catholic home, though I went to schools that were not Catholic. I went to church with my parents, brothers, and sisters when I was young. My extended family is religiously mixed. My mom comes from a family that is not Catholic. She joined the Catholic Church because of my dad. Despite her Anglican background, she used to say we are all Catholic, that all other Christian denominations came from Catholicism. I teased her because she was always talking about Catholicism and defending the Catholic Church even when she didn’t go to the Catholic church on Sunday. She even challenged the pastor of her own church to stop preaching against the Catholic Church.

My cousins were not Catholic. Sometimes we'd take turns going to the Catholic Church one Sunday and to the Anglican Church another Sunday. When we prayed together, if it was a Catholic leading, maybe the rosary would be prayed. If it wasn’t a Catholic, we would sing and praise. We all knew we were Christians and humans. That was how we grew up.

Was the community you grew up in religiously diverse?

It was mixed. In primary school, the majority of the students were Catholic, but we also had students from other Christian churches. The teachers were also mixed. When I went to secondary school, there were many Muslim girls. They were my neighbors and friends. We did everything together, apart from the fact that they went to the mosque on Fridays and I went to church on Sundays. We played together, we prayed together, we went to social events together. We had the privilege of growing up with people from different faiths: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and even traditionalists.

When did you realize you wanted to become a sister?

I can’t pinpoint the particular moment it began, but it was at an early age. As a young girl, every weekend I asked my mom if we could go to church. We liked going to church as children; you wouldn’t find us at home, you’d find us in the parish. When we went to church, there were sisters. They also taught us catechism. I would look at the sisters teaching us about God, teaching us songs, guiding us in different ways, and I would admire them. On Saturdays, I would ask my parents, can we go to the sister's place? Sometimes I would ask the sisters if I could help them with things. If we found them on the farm, we’d ask, can we help you? Whatever they would do, we'd also do as little girls. But I didn't think about becoming a sister at the time.

Our parish had outstations; on Sundays, the sisters would go to these outstations. I would ask if we could go with them. My maternal grandparents’ place was near one of the outstations. So on top of accompanying the sisters, I also had an opportunity to see my uncles and aunts and be with my cousins who were Catholics. At one of the outstations, I observed that many people came on days when there was a priest there. On days without a priest, there were fewer people. I asked the catechist why this was the case, and he said it was because people came for communion. Inside me, something clicked. I told myself that if people came to church for communion, then I wanted to become a priest so that I could give communion to the people so that they could come to church and know God.

As I grew up, I held onto that belief. I remember one time, a deacon was teaching us catechism and asked, “Who wants to be a sister?” Many girls raised their hands but I didn’t. When he asked what I wanted to be, I said I wanted to become a priest. At that time, I didn't know the difference between a sister and a priest. Maybe I was too young. The deacon said, “I will pray for you to become a priest.”

When I went to secondary school, I realized girls don't become priests. So I put the desire to rest. I went to a Protestant secondary school; the Catholics were a minority there. The Catholic girls organized ourselves; we would do our own service without a priest on Sundays. The rest of the days, we would join the Christian students.

When I was in Form 3 [grade 11], we got a Catholic head teacher; she started inviting Catholic sisters to the school. The desire to be like them started coming back. When I completed my Form 4 [grade 12], I went to visit the sisters in the convent. I was escorting another girl. She told me she had the desire to be a sister and I told her I also had the desire but I hadn't made up my mind. If the sisters accepted her, then I might also join. So I escorted this girl and the sisters received us. The vocation promoter spoke very nicely with us and shared a lot about God and the work of the sisters. There was a burning desire inside me. I felt very comfortable at the convent. I told the vocation promoter that if I passed my Form 4 exams, I would join the convent. When we went back home, I was so restless with the desire to become a sister. We kept in touch with the vocation promoter, and when I found out I had passed my exams, I broke the news of wanting to be a sister to my parents.

How did your family react when you told them you wanted to be a sister?

For my dad and siblings, it was okay. For my mom, it was a little difficult to accept at first. She said, “I want to see my grandchildren.” My oldest brother, the firstborn said, “Is anyone pushing you into going into this kind of life?” They thought someone was putting the idea in my head. I said no, it's my own decision. I want to become a nun and serve God. So my brother gave me his blessing. My parents told me I needed to be very disciplined to fit in the convent, and that they would bless me if it was my choice, so they did. My family said that if I went to the convent and found it wasn’t for me, I could always come back home. That's how I went and I joined the Sisters of St. Joseph of Mombasa. To date, I have not looked back.

Tell us about the history of your congregation, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Mombasa.

The Sisters of St. Joseph witness the evangelizing and saving mission of Christ among the people. Our motto is simplicity, service, and prayer. I fell in love with that motto the instant I met the congregation.

Recently, we've revisited our history as a congregation. We have always given credit to Bishop John Heffernan for founding the congregation. But now we are giving credit to the first four girls in the congregation, who made their first profession in 1941. These girls arrived in 1929 in Bura, Taita-Taveta County, where our motherhouse is. When they arrived in Bura, they saw European women belonging to the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood, and they wanted to be like them. At that time, there were no African sisters. According to Bishop Hefferman’s letter to the Vatican, he had no intention of starting an indigenous congregation, but the girls insisted. That’s why we honor them as our founders.

The Precious Blood Sisters took the interested girls to Moshi, Tanzania to be trained as sisters in the Congregation of Our Lady of Kilimanjaro, an indigenous congregation they had helped found. The girls did their aspirancy and postulancy in Moshi. When it was time for them to become novices, the local bishop wrote to Bishop Heffernan, telling him that if these girls became novices in his diocese, then they would become sisters there, too. Only then did it click for Bishop Heffernan that these girls were serious. So, in 1938, the girls were brought back to Kenya, and Bishop Heffernan went to Rome to request a decree to start a new congregation. He got the decree, and the girls returned and became postulants in Kenya. In December 1939, they became novices, and December 8, 1941, they made their first vows. Our congregation has always said we were founded in 1941, but we have revised our founding date to 1929, when these girls first arrived in Bura.

In the early years, our sisters worked very closely with the Precious Blood Sisters, who were key to nurturing their vocations. At that time, the Precious Blood Sisters were interested in a local congregation that could dialogue with the local culture, understand the people, and collaborate closely with them and the clergy in evangelizing the locals. Wherever the Precious Blood Sisters were, that's where our sisters went. A Precious Blood Sisters led the formation of the Sisters of St. Joseph and acted as superior of the congregation until 1962, when we had enough sisters to elect an African sister as superior.

You studied journalism and communication. How did you come to pursue these disciplines?

From a very early age, I had the desire to be a journalist. When I was young, one of my hobbies was to listen to the radio. Whenever I was home, whether I was alone or there were other people around, the radio would be on. We didn't have electricity back then, so my dad would always have to buy batteries.

In those days, there were educational radio broadcasts. Whenever I was at home – if I was sick and wasn’t at school – I would listen to them. I learned a lot and stayed informed about current affairs. It made me curious about things happening around me. My dad would buy newspapers, and I would read everything. In secondary school, whenever we had a class or exam on current affairs, I already had the answers. People would ask, “How did you know?” I’d say from the radio and from the newspaper.

There was nothing in front of me that I would not read. I would read my books and my brother's books, even those I didn't understand. That fostered the idea to become a journalist, either to write or to broadcast. I got into the habit of contributing to radio programs and newspapers from an early age, especially those for children. We had a very nice publication called The Rainbow. I would contribute occasionally and see my story in the paper. When I saw my name in the paper, it created the desire to be a journalist.

I joined the Sisters of St. Joseph after completing Form 4 and made my first profession in December 1992. When I joined, the sisters asked me what I would like to do. Automatically, I said I wanted to be a journalist. I had never seen a sister journalist and neither had my congregation. They told me I cannot be a sister and a journalist so I should forget about it. I said I would do anything as long as it’s what my congregation wanted. So I experimented with different things in my early years. But later, I did go into journalism. Whether it was God's providence or sheer luck, the opportunity came for someone to study journalism. Because I had mentioned my interested when I was in formation, my congregation came to me and asked if I still wanted to, and I did. That's how I ended up studying journalism at the Nyegezi Social Training Institute in Mwanza, Tanzania. It is now called St. Augustine University of Tanzania. I studied three years there and earned a diploma in journalism. I graduated in November 1998.

I later went to Rome for further studies at Pontifical Gregorian University and Salesian Pontifical University, where I acquired my licentiate in social communication and media studies.

You spent some years working at the Association of Sisterhoods of Kenya (AOSK). What was the experience like?

My journey has been an interesting one – I didn't plan it! I am someone who takes one thing at a time.

After graduating with my diploma in journalism, I wanted to work in the media industry. When I was in college, I had done an internship in a media house in Tanzania. Later, I did a second internship in a Kenyan media house. I felt comfortable working in that environment, but my congregation said sisters cannot work in the media industry. They thought that if I were to enter that field, I would be lost as a sister. I think there was also a general feeling that I was too young. But I told them I wasn’t a child: when I joined religious life, I was around 19. I had gone to college. The congregation has paid for me to study for three good years, but now they didn’t want me to work. So, what should I do? I felt a little frustrated. I told my superior that if she saw me on a national television broadcast, she shouldn’t be surprised!

As my congregation considered what I should do, I decided to volunteer for the AOSK’s Justice and Peace Commission, because I didn’t want to stay idle. The moment I arrived, an Irish Loreto Sister interviewed me. After a few days, she told me, “You’re going to be working here.” I said no, I had just come to volunteer for a few days because I had heard they needed people to help. The sister showed me advertisements she had sent to congregations for a journalist to work in the office; she contacted my congregation and requested that I work with her. That's how I ended up working for AOSK, specifically for their Justice and Peace Commission. I worked there for six years. I didn't necessarily do journalism but worked on different programs. Most of it was on civic education.

I had to learn a lot of things in the office. Thank God I had a journalism background because it prepared me. As a journalist, you have to know about the topic you are reporting on. If you report on medicine, you need to have a lot of background on medicine. If you report on soccer, you need to know the rules of soccer. My mind was thinking like a journalist; that background prepared me for the work I did at AOSK. I thought, yes, we have to train others, but we cannot train others if we don't know what exactly is needed. That pushed me to start attending seminars and trainings on civic education in order to be able to pass the message on to others. I discovered another side of me that was passionate about human rights, peace, education, and conflict resolution.

I worked with many different groups of people. We had programs for women peacemakers and for civic education. We had programs on human rights for children in primary and secondary schools. During school holidays in Kenya, we organized human rights schools for children where we linked Kenyan classrooms with classrooms in Ireland. The interaction of the children and the questions the Kenyan children asked the Irish children made me realize that the same issues affect people in different ways. The Irish children had a lot of theoretical knowledge and were very confident, unlike our children. But they had not faced some of the issues we were talking about. The Kenyan children lived with poverty and its effects, something that the children in Ireland could only imagine. An example is when an Irish child asked the Kenyan children if they had ever seen a poor person. The Irish children were astonished to hear that there were many children from poor families and that some of the Kenyan children were actually contributing to help other children living in the slums. The children were learning a lot from the experiences of each other.

In the second or third year of our school linkages, we decided to exchange teachers; two teachers went to Ireland and two teachers came to Kenya from Ireland. They had very interesting experiences. Some of the things that we take for granted here in Kenya, are game changers in Ireland. On his return, one of our teachers said that when he arrived in Ireland, he took a bus and had a sweet. He opened the window to throw the wrapper outside, and the girl sitting next to him told him to give it to her. He wondered what she wanted to do with it. When she got off the bus, the girl went to the bin and threw the wrapper in it. Then it dawned on that teacher: no wonder the place is very clean. He had kept wondering when the streets were swept, as they were always clean. He brought this message back to Kenya and that year his school received an environmental award. He encouraged the pupils and teachers of his school to mind about their environment by not littering. For me, this was a very enriching and educational moment. It also inspired me to communicate these messages to schools and communities in Kenya and wherever I went.

The project helped me grow and gain courage. I'm a timid person by nature, but when I'm convinced of something, I could probably die advocating for that thing. I got into issues of advocacy on the environment, women's rights, and human rights. I found myself getting involved in the annual Lenten Campaign, an initiative that seeks to lobby and advocate for public discourse on critical national issues. I contributed articles every year in the Lenten Campaign booklet which would discuss areas of concern; every parish in Kenya would be discussing them and taking action. It was a way for me to raise awareness and educate Kenyan society to understand and take action on issues we sometimes took for granted.

What made you decide to do a master’s degree in media studies?

After six years at the Justice and Peace Commission of the AOSK, my congregation recalled me. I was in the formation house for a year with our postulants and aspirants. After that, I went back to university. I wanted to do a master’s in media studies because I had realized that, wherever I went in the country, there were lots of issues that were not in the media. For example, the debt issue. After joining the Justice and Peace Commission, I participated in the Kenya Debt Relief Network to support the Pope’s call for debt relief for countries burdened by odious debts. This became an educational platform for me and others. It was a chance to learn about what debt is, what it does to the country, and how countries get into debt in the first place. I became very passionate about educating people about the debt burden.

Gender-based violence is another important issue. There is little coverages of wife battering, gender violence, or early and forced marriages in the media despite these issues being so widespread in the country. As part of my role at AOSK, I would visit places where girls were forced into marriage at a very tender age to men in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. I thought, where are these stories in the media? I remember being invited to Isiolo, in northern Kenya, to celebrate International Women's Day. Sitting there and listening to the speeches and presentation about these issues, I thought, how do we bring this to light? I went back to Nairobi, and the next day, I had a story in the national media.

I felt that the media needed to do more in highlighting these stories and issues. If everybody had this information and had the will to address these issues, people would look for solutions. So I did my master’s in media studies to see how all these issues are linked and what can be done about them. I still believe that the media is a very powerful tool, not only in highlighting issues but also in suggesting ways to address them. Wherever I have been, I've tried to share the knowledge I have with people. In our small ways, we can bring about a difference in our society. There's no angel coming from heaven to solve these issues. God will not come down Himself. He uses us to deal with and address these issues.

After completing my licentiate in 2012, my congregation sent me to Tanzania. I worked for Mwenge Catholic University, establishing their public relations department. I also worked in the sociology department, teaching the sociology of mass communications to undergraduate students. I also linked the university with the media in the area and organized trainings for teachers and students on communication. I also linked the university with institutions in Tanzania and abroad.

At that time, the university journal published part of my master’s thesis. It was about communication as a tool for development. I looked at the environmentalist Wangari Maathai and how participatory communication played a part in her Green Belt Movement. One of the visiting lecturers read the thesis and took it back to her students in Scotland. Some of them invited me to speak to them in Scotland. It was another instance of linkage with others, an opportunity to look at the same issues from different perspectives.

What was your path to becoming secretary general of the Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa (ACWECA)?

From Tanzania, I was elected to the general council of my congregation. I worked for the general council for six years, in the Department of Education and Communication. In 2021, we got a new leadership team. This was during the COVID pandemic. I would have taken a sabbatical, but because of COVID, we had to stay indoors. I wanted to do something that would challenge me somehow. I opted to take a yearlong short course on interreligious dialogue and Islamic studies at Tangaza University in Nairobi.

When I finished the course in November 2021, the secretary general of ACWECA had just left to become superior general of her congregation. There was a gap in leadership at ACWECA; they needed someone to fill the position immediately, so they reached out to congregations in the region.

My superior approached me and asked if I knew about ACWECA. I told her I had heard about them during my work at AOSK; back in 2002, they had elected their first secretary general and her office was close to the AOSK Justice and Peace office in Nairobi. My superior informed me that ACWECA was recruiting a secretary general and asked if I would be interested. I offered to give it a try and went to the interviews. After the board interviewed me, I was appointed to the position!

What are your responsibilities as secretary general?

As secretary general, I oversee the day-to-day running of the secretariat. We have different staff members, program officers, and programs for all ten countries in the region. I oversee planning, organizing, fundraising, coordination of activities within the secretariat, and management of links with other organizations. I also convene ACWECA board meetings and report directly to the board, which is made up of the chairpersons of the national conferences of women religious in our ten English-speaking member countries. So my role is focused on guiding the activities of the secretariat, engaging staff members and our member conferences, and supporting the board of directors. I also recruit the staff of the secretariat. One of my most important responsibilities is to direct the implementation of the strategic plan of the organization in line with the vision and mission of ACWECA.

How many congregations and sisters are represented by ACWECA?

We have about 30,000 sisters, but our statistics are a bit old. We are doing a new assessment to update the statistics. We estimate that there are over 40,000 sisters now and around 300 congregations. Kenya alone has 172 congregations registered with AOSK.

What are some of the most important skills you’ve gained in your career so far?

One of the main skills is living and dealing with people of different cultural and political backgrounds, ideologies, and languages. Sometimes people are very strict; they believe they can only associate with people of a certain kind, or only with Muslims or Christians. I think it's a blessing that I have been able to collaborate and work with people of different backgrounds. In my office, there is richness in the diversity of people and talents.

Another skill I’ve gained is the ability to fit into different roles, sometimes even without preparation. Wherever I find myself, I can fit in because of skills I have picked up over the years in different fields. For us religious sisters, sometimes you don't go where you want to but where you are needed most. These skills become very important because they help me understand myself and others and to really understand where other people are coming from without being judgmental. I also listen a lot and value teamwork.

A skill that I'm still working on is communicating my ideas. I’m a perpetual student; I can never learn enough. I absorb a lot of information, but to share this knowledge with other people is very important. I've learned that I need to create space for that kind of sharing and learning.

How has your experience been in the Women Faith Leaders Fellowship?

The WFLF has been an eye-opener for me. It has been an opportunity to interact with other sisters whose motivation, just like mine, is faith: faith in God but also in people. The other sisters motivated and inspired me to understand and address the challenges people are facing and to make a difference in society.

For my WFLF capstone project, I focused on helping women in a rural town called Marsabit, close to the border with Ethiopia. I wanted to uplift the women who live there. I was looking at three elements: countering poverty and gender violence, education, and economic independence.

What made me choose this project was my own encounter with girls from Marsabit. When I worked for the AOSK Justice and Peace Commission, I visited Marsabit. That was many years back, when we were working on conflict mediation and resolution between communities. Then, in 2021, I came into contact with a number of girls from Marsabit who were not in school. Some of them were undergoing FGM as young as eight years old and then being forced into marriage. Missionaries working in Marsabit were trying to find families to take in the girls. Even when families took girls in, they could not help all the girls in Marsabit to get an education. And even those girls who got an education and became teachers didn't want to go back to Marsabit to teach because of the harsh conditions there.

My heart was bleeding for these girls and the community. I went back to my congregation and asked if there was something we could do. I was willing to help as an individual but knew it would make a bigger impact if we did something as a congregation. In our schools, we have orphans and children from poor families who cannot pay school fees, so I asked if we could take some of the girls from Marsabit. We decided to take four girls and put them in our schools. The oldest girl was thirteen. They had to be assessed to fit in the relevant classes, but they could not go into the classes that corresponded to their age. We looked for another way for them to fit in the school. But the thirteen-year-old girl could not go to secondary school. I knew that, if she went back home, she’d be married at 18. So I told my congregation that we should put her in vocational training.

The girl learned dressmaking and then went back home. She was the first tailor in her area, but she didn’t have a sewing machine. People knew she was a tailor and were bringing her clothes to mend, but she had to look for bus fare to travel. I requested that my congregation buy one sewing machine for this girl. But then I realized there are other girls and women who don't have any source of income, so this became the foundation for my capstone project. I used the money I received to buy sewing machines for these girls so that they not only mend clothes for themselves but also enable other young women to mend clothes and start their own income-generating projects. In October, I will visit Marsabit and see how the situation is, and see what more we can do.

If women and girls have economic independence, gender violence may decrease, because gender violence sometimes happens because a woman wants to buy something for her children. The man has been out all day looking for a job, he doesn't have any money, and so he ends up by beating this woman so that she doesn't ask him again.

The WFLF is a very good program, because it's enabling women to dream. This is a dream not only for me, but also for many others. I hope the WFLF will continue to enable women to not only tell their stories but to imagine and execute creative solutions to everyday challenges. The fellowship is not only helping us as individuals but also the communities we serve. For me, this is very important. I'm happy that I benefitted and that other women will continue to benefit from the WFLF.