Professor Maureen Maisha Auma is a professor at the Hochschule Magdeburg Stendal and a visiting professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. She boasts multiple academic and professional accolades both in Kenya and Germany.
Professor Auma is also an activist and champion for the rights of minority communities. She sensitizes and educates minorities on various societal issues.
Background & Education
Professor Maureen Maisha Auma was born in Kisumu but grew up in Nairobi. She resided with her mother at the staff quarters of Mbagathi Road Primary School where her mother, renowned Kenyan swimming coach Pauline Miduda Raburu, worked as a teacher.
She developed a passion in teaching from idolizing her mother and uncle who is a former vice-chancellor of the University of Nairobi.
“I grew up hearing people call my mother “Japuonj”, Luo for teacher. And it instilled in me a passion to teach”, she told website, Mkenyaujerumani.
Professor Auma attended Nairobi Primary and Hospital Hill before sitting for her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams at Loreto Convent Primary School in Mombasa.
She proceeded to Kenya High School as part of the second batch of 8-4-4 curriculum that had been introduced in 1985.
Prof Auma developed an interest in foreign languages at the Kenya High particularly in French and German. She travelled to German in 1990 as part of an exchange programme and fell in love with the country.
She sat for her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams in 1990 and returned to Germany.
The German academic curriculum was different from Kenya’s and so Auma could not proceed directly to University. She had to attend Studienkolleg to attain the required 13 years of the then, pre-university schooling in Germany.
She qualified and proceeded to the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel, graduating in 1995 with a degree in Social Work.
Career
Professor Maureen Maisha Auma became a counselor, working with women and girls who had been victims of violence. Coupled with her own experiences of racism, she began advocating for social cohesion and speaking against racism.
She has been negotiating for equality and equity for women and persons of colour in professional spaces for over 18 years.
Professor Auma notes that these challenges can be solved if society does not view gender and racial differences as inabilities, rather find strength in cultural diversity.
She completed her doctoral thesis on: “How Children Understand the Construction of the Social World” and graduated with a doctorate.
Peak Academic Career
Professor Maureen Maisha Auma started as a lecturer at the Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies and the Institute for Education both at the Humboldt University in Berlin, in 2005.
Later that year, she was promoted to an Assistant Professor.
In April 2008, she was awarded a full Professorship in Childhood and Difference (Diversity Studies) at the Hochschule Magdeburg Stendal, where she was registered as a civil servant (beamter).
Auma had contemplated returning to Kenya, but before she could actulise the plan, a position at the Humboldt University opened up.
She believes Kenyan intellectuals in Germany could turn around the social landscape both here and at home if they worked together to look for solutions to resolving social challenges. She learnt this first-hand from her mentor the late Dr. Anthony Z. Owinoh, formerly of the Kenya Berlin Forum.
Professor Maureen Maisha Auma dropped her ex-husband’s name “Eggers” in favour of her own name, “Auma” after their divorce. A move some might label as radical, but she has a logical explanation to it all.
In the Luo community, where she hails, the name Auma was given to an infant delivered in a prostrate position and had to be turned around. An act Prof. Maisha says reflects her current stage in life.
“I am at a turning point in my life, where I’m experiencing breakthrough”, she emphasizes in her strong stoic voice.
“It feels good. I am 43 years old and I finally have a stable name, my own. It’s like a rediscovery of self”, she explains.
Professor Maureen Maisha Auma has been a member of Adefra, an iniative that supports Women of Colour in Germany, since 1993. She enjoys time out with friends and recently started gardening.
“We have patches of sweet potatoes, carrots, vegetables and flowers,” noting that she learnt the skills fromm the internet and from 8-4-4 Agriculture classes.
