Lt Col Faith Mwagandi: Shattering glass ceiling in the military

Lieutenant Colonel Faith Mwagandi of the Kenya Navy is a lady for many firsts in an otherwise male-dominated field in the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF).

Yesterday, during celebrations to mark the 61st  Mashujaa Day celebrations presided over by President William Ruto at the Kwale Stadium, she was the parade commander.

''Today marks history as the national parade was led by Lt Col Faith Mwagandi, '' President Ruto said while adding that women have made exemplary strides in the country.

Lt Col Mwagandi also made history in 2019 as the commander of a Kenya Navy warship, becoming the first woman to take command of a naval warship in Kenya's military history.

At that time, she was a major in the Navy.

A native of Magarini sub-county in Kilifi County, Mwagandi, whose university stint lasted a mere three weeks after she was enlisted for a course against her wish, followed up on a newspaper advertisement and tried her luck in the disciplined forces.

After her impressive Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination at the Moi Girls High School in Eldoret and attaining impressive grades, she hoped to study medicine but was instead called to do a general degree course.

"I was eager for change and a quick career change after my disappointment in being left out of doing medicine,'' she said during an earlier interview with The Standard.

She enrolled for basic military training at the Kenya Military Academy in Lanet in 2007, where she graduated with a diploma in military science, which was followed by a degree through distance learning from Egerton University, Njoro.

She has trained locally and abroad with stints at the Kenya Navy headquarters, Mtongwe, Mombasa, and the Manda Navy base in Lamu for her junior officer conversion courses.

In her sea voyages, Mwagandi has served aboard KNS Galana, a supply and logistics vessel, where she served as a trainee cadet.

She performed well and was selected to attend the prestigious Britania Royal Navy College in May of 2010 in the United Kingdom (UK) where she sailed aboard the Royal Navy ship, HMS Bulwark, a landing platform vessel used for training.

She would later return home and serve as an instructor at the Kenya Navy Training School (KNTS), Mtongwe.

Her sea job has seen her work aboard Kenya's research vessel owned by the Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute (Kmfri) but manned by the Kenya Navy as a navigating officer between 2016 and 2017.

She has also sailed aboard KNS Shujaa, an Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) as a principal warfare officer. Mwagandi was also part of the vessel's crew as it sailed to undergo a midlife refit in the Netherlands.

Mwagandi has also participated in active duty with KDF in war-torn Somalia aboard KNS Shupavu.