2017

The most majestic miracle on earth is giving birth, and such a beautiful experience shouldn’t be a cause of worry and death. My passion was sowed young as a girl when I experienced a horrifying incident back in my village in Embu.

My grandmother, a renowned traditional birth attendant, experienced a complicated labor that led to the death of a friend. The death that could have been avoided if advanced health care was accessible. It was heartbreaking, still is, but from this, I vowed to live my life to correct this inequality.

I am a Registered Community Health Nurse and the current CEO of Mwatate Healthcare Centre, a Level III facility in Mukuru Tassia. My 30 years professional experience has seen me work in disadvantaged communities in Kwale, Taita and Mukuru slums. By concentrating on the often forgotten part of our community, I hope to restore hope and dignity while creating sustainable economic environments through the provision of affordable health. Mwatate Healthcare Centre thus specializes in quality and comprehensive Curative services, Sexual & Reproductive health services, Child welfare clinic and Community Sensitization. We also endeavor to create awareness on social issues affecting the community such as birth planning, growth & nutrition, abandoned children, cancer screening. Thus by reaching out to the mother and child as the core of a family unit, we safeguard multiple generations. In time, I hope to leave a legacy as a lead advocate for provision of world class, affordable and accessible healthcare services in Africa.

Mwatate Healthcare Centre thus specializes in quality and comprehensive Curative services, Sexual & Reproductive health services, Child welfare clinic and Community Sensitization. We also endeavor to create awareness on social issues affecting the community such as birth planning, growth & nutrition, abandoned children, cancer screening. Thus by reaching out to the mother and child as the core of a family unit, we safeguard multiple generations. In time, I hope to leave a legacy as a lead advocate for provision of world class, affordable and accessible healthcare services in Africa.

Dr. Kizzie Shako is a Medical Practitioner working under the Division of Forensic and Pathology Services, Ministry of Health, Kenya and currently seconded to the National Police Service as a Police Surgeon.

She has received training in various fields of Forensic Pathology, namely Dead Body Management, Disaster victim Identification Post mortem examination, and Death investigation. She has acquired in-depth knowledge and skills in Clinical Forensic Medicine including Injury Interpretation, Adult and Child Sexual Violence, and Non Accidental injuries in Children.

Dr. Shako is actively involved in development of policy, standard operating procedures and manuals for both government and non-government organisations. She is an active Technical Working Group member for Guidelines for Management of sexual violence, Independent Medico Legal Unit, National Coroner’s bill, SOPs for Clinical Forensic Practitioners among others.

Given the nature of her work with victims of violence, she is driven to make a positive impact in her community to reduce the cases of sexual and domestic violence, to capacity build key players involved in the outcome of rehabilitation and restoration and justice for victims. This desire motivated initiation of VUNJA KIMYA, a blog where she addresses sensitive issues and gives advice highlighting key elements of violence.

Lesirwo is a Secondary school in Kipkelion Consituency. We seek a sustainable, community embedded, “trade” not “aid” process of giving the girls that confidence to scale to greater heights in three ways:

We provide a decent platform for the mothers of enrolled students to sell their agricultural goods to willing and well meaning buyers at bid prices with the minimum reserve price set at the local market price (often lower than nairobi price). A woman of purpose holds herself in dignity and pride. By ensuring that the girl has a sanitary towel every month, she knows she is worth it.

Every year in May we invite ladies and men (preferably with roots in the community) to spend the day with students so they not only hear of the great success stories but can see and feel it.
We continuously seek to improve the grades to give the students a better chance of qualifying for government sponsored university and technical college programmes. We therefore instituted a competitive term by term bursary. We are happy to note one of the first recipient of the fund scored A- in the 2016 KCSE examination

We look forward to scaling this initiative to other schools in Kenya.

Mukuhi Karimi was born in 1987. As the first born in her family; she was left with her father after her parents divorced. Her father passed away in a road accident when she was five years old leaving her under the care of her grandmother.

She attended Nguna primary school in the 90’s and Ng’etho high school. After high school, she immediately started hustling as a sales and marketer in various companies. It is here that she got a chance to acquire skills and work in hairdressing and beauty therapy.

She has managed to come up with a company known as Blessing Hair and Beauty College, which started back in 2014 as a small salon based in Kangemi and Kawangware. As a qualified hairdresser and beautician, she has decided to share her knowledge with the youth and young mothers to become self-reliant. At least 80 young members around Kangemi and Kawangware slums have graduated from the college and become bread winners in their families.

My first job after my Diploma in Clinical Medicine and Surgery was at MSF France in Mathare.Mathare slum is known for its high poverty levels, crimes, and violence that render women, girls, and children especially vulnerable.

Working at this Sexual and Gender Based Violence Recovery Centre was the beginning of my journey into GBV activism. Every day, dozens women and girls walked into my clinic deeply traumatized with physical, emotional and psychological abuse.

All this time, I never quite processed this trauma! Many times I went home weighed down and cried myself to sleep. Wanting to help survivors deal with their trauma, and to understand gender dynamics led me to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Counseling Psychology and a Masters in Gender and Developmental studies. I provide empathetic quality clinical care to survivors and ensure they that are able to access justice for the crimes committed against them; I have on many occasions served as an expert witness in court.

I am a mother, wife, and daughter who is self-driven and passionate about promoting the rights of women, men and children affected by Gender Violence, am committed to building the capacity of health care workers to deliver quality post rape care services, and often work as a trainer for the Ministry of Health and the International Peace Training Support Centre in Kenya. I am also a Clinical Management of Rape Consultant for the UNFPA Humanitarian and Context branch deployed in Somalia and South Sudan.

I have been instrumental in developing various Kenya national policy, guidelines, and tools to help standardize post rape care in the country. I am also a co-founder of GenderHealth Africa, an organization that aims to strengthen the capacity of health workers and other actors in GBV programming, psychosocial support and clinical management of rape.

Natalie Robi Tingo has more than three years’ experience in the non-profit sector and holds a B.A in Economics from Moi University, Kenya. She is the Founder of Msichana Empowerment Kuria. An organization she founded at 19 years old.

Her organization reaches more than 30,000 people from her community in Southern Kenya with End Female Genital Mutilation, education, human rights, youth, and women empowerment programs. Her belief in ending all forms of violence against women and girls, through involving youth creative ideas in solving social problems prompted her to develop youth led programs that are ensuring the organization achieves its goals. In 2015 she was selected for the Accountability Advocate project for Sustainable Development Goals with Restless Development Youth Power Global Campaign and developed a national accountability framework, a blueprint that young people will use in their communities to monitor the implementation of the sustainable development goals. In the better half of 2015, she was selected to be a youth participant in the first African Union Conference on Ending Child Marriages in Lusaka Zambia.

She is a 9th Ewha Global Empowerment Program 2016 alumni a prestigious program that recognizes outstanding women across Asia and Africa in their contribution for women empowerment. Spark International recognizes her as a She by Spark* International 2016 Kenyan Change Maker. In 2016 she was selected as one of the 265 Women Deliver Global Youth Scholars to represent their respective countries in Denmark in the 4th Global Women Deliver Conference on women and girls. In the better half of 2016, she was named as one of the Emerging Innovators in East Africa by Ashoka Changemakers in the Ashoka America Express Leadership program. Global Citizen has featured her work twice in innovation in education and Ending Female Genital Cutting and in her community.

Buya Mukonzo Winfred is a final year student at Maseno studying Public Health with Information Technology, She is the Founder and Director of Empower HER Initiative, an initiative that mentors women and girls to become agents of social and economic change.

She founded the initiative during her term of leadership as a student leader to challenge women and girls to do more.

She is the 3rd born in a family of 5, 4 girls and one boy. Growing up, her parents gave them equal opportunities to thrive regardless of their gender. At the moment the initiative has grown and expanded its operations in 2 counties, Vihiga and Kisumu where they actively mentor the girl child.

In campus, in partnership with other NGOs she also trains female students who’d like to contest for elective positions in leadership and nurture their leadership ambitions. This has led to a tremendous increase in female representation as candidates for elective positions. She also trains students on hands on skills such as mat weaving, braiding and nail art that gives them extra income to meet their needs. She also organizes forums over a cup of coffee in partnership with the school to talk about issues affecting women in campus and come up solutions.

She also has support programs for young mums who are campus students with kids through advocacy, economic empowerment and enabling them to strike a balance between school and responsibility.

She is also passionate about transformational leadership, as it’s only through this that we can have a better society