Credit: Madam Tenneh A. Kamara Subah

By: R. Joyclyn Wea

This reporting supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation and NDI’S VAW-PM Program.

Tenneh A. Kamara Subah, a teacher trainer, says she entered politics because women’s opinions in the southeast were not being heard, and that women’s representation in the region is an emergency. 

“There’s nobody on that table making decisions for us, there’s nobody making contributions to the policies that guide our lives so if there’s nobody there speaking for us and we are here why don’t we get up and stand the challenge? We are not saying at the table the men who are there are not capable or they are not knowledgeable, but you cannot be here and I will be talking for you. 

Liberia’s whole southeastern area had produced two female legislators. Liberian Chief Justice Gloria Musu Scott, who is currently imprisoned, was the first woman to defy that traditional norm in 2005 when she was elected as the Junior Senator of Maryland County; since then, no female had ever gained an electoral position in the national assembly. It continued until October of this 2023, when another woman was elected to represent District Two Grand Gedeh County, bringing the total to two. 

“I thought to step out so we too can have a voice. You can’t be here and I will be speaking for you.” You are sitting here and we are having a discussion and I want to speak for you.”  Subah “We can’t be women and we are here, but we must always speak through the men then, is of no essence that we are having these pieces of training on women’s representation and political participation.”

She told a IWMF interview in River Gee: “If we want more women to be in the house we have to step outside of the party game and see it as a critical issue that we need to pay attention to siding with our party and that’s why I was happy to hear that a woman won in Grand Gedeh which is the first time in the history of that county and we hope that she too will work in ways that will support more women to come up in the next election.” 

Subah sees politics as an issue of fear, stigma, and overstepping one’s bounds as a woman, and she believes that electorates are largely female, and that young people have a distorted sense of what it is. 

“I realize that the men have been lying to the people a whole lot during the community engagement they have presented a picture that that place is not a place that woman should foot because it has some traditional bearing that it is not a female-oriented job and out of fear the people hold back because they don’t want you to go there and failed. Subah “They feel it is a kind of job that is dangerous for women to enter into. Women don’t have a real picture of what it is.”

She was born in 1982, the oldest of 12 sibling of Mr. and Mrs. Boakai A. Kamara. She is descended from Grand Kru and RobertSport in the Grand Cape Mount Counties.

During the Liberian civil war, Subah fled to Ghana with her family, where she spent a portion of her life in a refugee camp, learning and working alongside community-based groups. She returned from Ghana once there was compensation.

Subah’s career began in 2010 when she accepted a position as a teacher trainer with IBIF, an international organization, which brought her to River Gee County, and has lived here for the past 13 years.

Credit: Subah, during one of mentorship sessions

She has a “C” certificate in education and is a Chemistry education candidate at Tubman University in Maryland County. 

“We don’t have a lot of women in that field and also I want to be a role model for somebody. Someone would say if that woman at that age can still go back to school and do this, I at this age can also try.”

In 2011, Subah founded a community-based organization called Women Alert which works with women and young people. Sanbah has used the approach to collaborate with locals in Fish Town on private gardens, village saving loans, counseling for women, and educational support for adolescent girls. The goal is for the women, the most of whom are single mothers and widows, to be self-sufficient and capable of caring for their children.

“Once an adult or parent has a psychological issue, there’s a transfer of it to the children who are in your care, so I thought that this was one of the important things that I should do. And also, working along with them to help them to pay attention to their children’s schooling because we work with school, we saw that by the time its 10 0’clock the children are on their way home or sometimes you find the children by 8:30 to 9 am, they are still going to school by the time is 10 or 10:30 am they are on their way home, like that you are losing a lot of school hours. So, we work with the parents so they too can hold the school authority accountable for helping these students to stay in school.”

Passionate about education, Subah in 2013 built an early childhood development school, which is now one of the best in the county. 

“When I came up with my early childhood development, people didn’t believe in it as far as they were concerned. Two to three years old children cannot go to school; it was a waste of time and money, and I said it could work and we started it. Over the years, it has grown into what it is supposed to be. We have two branches, both of them combined. We will be talking about some four hundred students.”

        Credit: Hon. Tenneh in photography with some of her students

Subah is not discouraged that she  didn’t win the election; she intends to increase her community involvement with the hope of getting it right by 2029. 

“The men, they don’t give up, some of them came the third and fourth times before they made it. Around us here just by you coming three times, the people feel sorry for you and say she has come too much let give it to her at least, and that’s one of the things, the people say that by the time women step into an election once and you don’t win they sit down and by the time you sit down your political life is dead but if you go the next time and continue coming there’s a chance that you may win.”

She is urging women-led organizations, influential women in politics, international partners, and stakeholders who want to see increased and better women representation in national legislatures to scoot women early and support them in remaining engaged with their respective communities to scoot women early and support them in remaining engaged with their respective communities. 

“I thanked those who in the process of the elections came in with support. I am glad that they came in to help us but I want them to make their programs more timely. They should work in the timeframe. I tell you when you are in elections just two days away from your constituents can cause a lot of damage because our people live in their eyes, they want to see you all the time, in that way they feel that they have a connection with you.”

She went on to say, “I also want the international partner to work with us to engage with the school. The school has a lot of young people. The student community is not easy, they have the numbers because when it comes to political leadership, that’s the starting point for girls that are in school.”