Edinburgh is a city teeming with female leaders, those that shake the existing order and act as a guide for other women to smash through the glass ceiling that exists in a predominantly white male dominated capital.
Debora Kayembe, 46, is one such woman.
She is someone who has overcome an immense level of adversity to reach the elite tier of her profession - working with the Royal Society of Edinburgh and becoming rector of Edinburgh University.
READ MORE - The Edinburgh woman bringing the capital's inspiring black history back to life
After growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Debora was sent to live with her aunt and uncle at a time of civil war following her parents splitting whilst she was still at a young age.
This meant that Debora had to work harder than everyone else from the offset - a trait that characterises the legal powerhouse that she has become.
After surviving through two tumultuous civil wars, she was afforded the rare opportunity of continuing her education beyond the basic level, with her aunt and uncle stumping up the cash for her to pursue a career at university.
Whilst at university, Debora began to excel and turn heads with her work.
On her early life, she said: “Childhood wise I was born in a sheltered family but was looked after outside of my biological parents. I stayed with my aunt and her family.
“I was a child who had very little time to enjoy childhood and I was very serious as I was raised by other people. So I took my education very seriously. I was really grateful to my aunty and uncle as they provided for my education at a time when the Congolese state refused to pay for our education beyond the basics. It was seen as something for men.
“Even as a young woman I was conscious that without my education there was no other freedom.
“I was the break from tradition and also the first girl in my family to go to university and the only one to go to law school and get the bar.
“At 19 I attended university and that same year my country survived a civil war and the old president left. The new president was not pro emancipation for women and was very conservative. Female rights really collapsed as a result, so I joined to fight for female education rights whilst a student and continued to do activism.
“Initially I joined the student groups and then I became the head of the law faculty. By the time I finished university I was second in command to the president of the Student Association which was a very big thing to be in that position in the university structure at the time. You could definitely say it was breaking barriers.
“My activism was very dangerous because the environment was not favourable to me.
“During my fourth year I became a human right activist in the city and I came about an assassination of a girl killed by a presidential guard. Her naked body had been thrown in her father's front door. I built the story, gathered the evidence and even had a picture. I brought this to the first human rights commissioning body in Kinshasa and reported the murder.
“It turned out to be a major breakthrough. People had been accusing the forces in the DRC of abuse but no one had brought irrefutable evidence.”
This led to her first graduate job, an internship with the UN Security Council through the Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Agency OCHA.
Her family were in disbelief at her achievements.
But what she found most “amazing” was that she began training as a humanitarian advisor - someone that can administer advice on humanitarian questions with a good understanding of how internal law and the Geneva Convention work in principle.
Through her work she was able to secure access to sensitive files on the massacres and abuses of Congo that even the Congolese government were not able to access.
Debora notes that it was in this job that her supervisors influenced the professional that she would later become and this is where “her legacy started.”
She was later urged to take the bar in Congo and became the youngest barrister in the countries history at age 25.
On this period of her life she said: “The other male lawyers used to call me ‘the little lady’ which was both patronising and endearing depending on the occasion.
“I became very successful as a lawyer quickly by doing paid work helping to settle businesses from all over the world in the Congo as well as pro bono to support women with domestic abuse in court.
“But when the situation turned again to a violent civil war, I was invited to take part in the peace talks process alongside Nelson Mandela in Sin City in 2001. At this time there were still massacres being carried out in the East of the country.
“The talks went well and at the end, the national unity government put together independent commissions for elections, conciliation and human rights with the human rights commission appointing me as special envoy at age 26.
“In the beginning we were afforded the full backing of UN logistical support as well as support from the DRC government for our investigation in the East of the country. But what we discovered was that the killing of Congolese people was about the stealing of our natural resources by businesses attempting to avoid paying tax.
“What shocked us the most was that this seemed to be carried out with the blessing of UN officials and domestic politicians.
“But when I began exposing these issues my life was in danger and I left.”
Debora first came to the UK on Feb 26 2005 at the age of 29. She first arrived in London but after finishing her immigration interview, travelled to Blackburn (England) on April 7 2005.
Sharing her heartbreaking experience of being made to feel “very small by immigration”, she said: “This is a time in my life where I felt very small. The treatment by immigration was inhumane. I did not feel humiliated as they did not know who I was but they just saw a black woman sitting in an asylum with no respect and no dignity. I remember spending my first weekend in Blackburn with no electricity and on Easter Sunday I walked to the closest church to pray. When I got there the service had finished but they welcomed me anyway and said that someone looked after refugees here and that they would support me.
“John did end up helping me. He supported me through the process and I eventually gained my asylum two years later. The two years before my asylum was granted was a time of no dignity or respect that left me feeling dragged left and right by immigration policies.”
At this time, Debora “survived” a separation with her husband who left her with an 11 month old boy and a two year old daughter.
She thanks the NHS for allowing her to survive the hardship of splitting with her husband and going through the UK asylum process. In her words: “They gave me my life back through counselling.”
Her next move was to try to secure a return to the legal career she had worked so hard to build against all odds back in the DRC.
She applied to the Royal Society of London but unfortunately her qualifications were not recognised by the body. However, they were in Scotland through the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Debora applied and was accepted but only if she relocated to Edinburgh.
On her journey North of the border she said: “This left me venturing north of the border on my own in a van in a quest for a life of tranquillity in Scotland.
“We sold everything we owned in England and then ventured into a sleepy area outside of Edinburgh called Bonnyrigg. I remember stopping with my kids at the border and they asked what was written on a sign. I remember it read: ‘Welcome to Scotland the land of the brave.’
“I turned to my kids and said we are brave, we are one of them.”
Debora sent her children to the local school and began work as a translator all over Scotland for asylum seekers.
But in 2012 she started supporting asylum seekers on other matters and she herself contacted the Scottish Refugee Council to see if they wanted to hear her story.
On the 30th anniversary of the Scottish Refugee Council, she gave a speech in the Scottish parliament, where a representative of the Young Academy of Scotland and the Royal Society of Scotland were so impressed that they called on her to join the Young Academy on George street to advise on issues relating to asylum seekers and international law.
In 2017 she attended an interview on George Street at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, on this she said: “I got into this big place, with huge portraits of white males looking glorious in their robes, and I remember saying to myself that it will take another 1,000 years for a black person to be on these walls.
“During my time with the young academy, I was mostly working with working groups on asylum and refugee issues as well as many other topics. I remember working so hard at the Young Academy.
“The Royal Society (which is the higher Society and the Young Academy which is the lower) are traditionally connected. The Young Academy is predominantly for those under the age of 45. So most fellows in the Royal Society are therefore over the age of 45, so I was shocked when they invited me to work alongside them at my age.
“The Royal Society wrote to me in August of 2019 as they had asked a painter to have a portrait that would be exhibited at the Society home to honour my achievements.”
But from there, Debora became more visible and her family home began to become the site of racist attacks.
On one occasion a mob targeted her home in Bonnyrigg, and on another after moving house, her car was targeted by racists putting nails in her tyre.
As a result she rebelled and launched a charity called the ‘Freedom Walk Campaign’ that called on people to live in harmony by encouraging dialogue between new xenophobes and those arriving in an area.
On this Debora says that she was inspired by Desmond Tutu’s words: “If hate comes to your door, treat it with love.”
The campaign has saw the Edinburgh Uni rector invited to an audience with the Columbian President.
But her work changing lives did not end there, as after her daughter was asked to perform a slave dance in front of her white classmates, she started a petition in the Scottish Parliament for anti-racist education to become mandatory for teachers so that they can be equipped to teach racism sensibly.
The petition was received in parliament with a commission meeting to discuss its aims. It turned out that a lot of the suggestions made would be enshrined into education policy at the next update distributed to teachers.
And in November of 2020, she was asked if she would accept the invitation to become rector of Edinburgh University.
On this she said: “The invite came from the UCU branch with both representatives of staff and students backing the decision. Initially I couldn’t believe the University would ask me to take on that role and I had to measure the consequence of being the first person of colour in this role as well as the white colonialism that is still very present at this institution.
“But people close to me convinced me that the work that I’m doing is important and that Edinburgh University has a voice that can be heard from around the world.”
She shared advice on International Women's Day saying: “My advice on International Women’s day is to break down the barriers that exist in our society. In order for us to be successful as a society and to live in peace, we must learn to live side by side with one another. Ignorance will only destroy us and being arrogant will not get us anywhere.
“What is identity? What is segregation? Bias holds us back and we need to break free from this.
“The exercise for today is to get to know each other better and not to be judgemental of one another.
“If we spend time hating each other and creating differences we will not go anywhere. Break the bias, break our differences and come together.”
