Greetings from the Akili Dada Team! We are an international non-profit organization empowering and nurturing the next generation of Africa’s women leaders by offering scholarships, mentoring, and leadership training to high-achieving young women from underprivileged backgrounds.

Meet Sasha Rabsey, Akili Dada Donor and Founder of the HOW Fund

This month we are delighted to introduce Sasha Rabsey, founder of the HOW Fund and one of our valued donors, to our Akili Dada network. Founded in 2009 by Ms. Rabsey and other members of the Rabsey/Berkowitz family, the HOW Fund is a private funding entity which has generously supported Akili Dada’s work.

The impetus behind the family’s giving grew from their two summers of volunteer work in Africa. As a result of these experiences, the Rabsey/Berkowitz family believes that empowering women and girls and addressing the needs of vulnerable children are the key to healthy, productive families and communities. To this end, the HOW Fund supports a number of organizations working in Africa and elsewhere around the globe to lift women and children out of poverty.

In addition to grants to non-profit organizations, the HOW Fund also awards Fellowships to individual global innovators whose programs provide scholarships and mentoring for adolescent girls. Awarded annually, HOW Fellowships provide these strong leaders with a professional development grant and supports their participation as delegates to the prestigious Opportunity Collaboration annual conference in Mexico. As we posted on our blog in March, our Executive Director Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg was recently selected as a 2012 HOW Fellow, along with two other leaders working in Pakistan.

Our team at Akili Dada is immensely grateful for the support and genuine friendship Sasha has so kindly shown us over the past few years. Thank you, HOW Fund and the Rabsey-Berkowitz Family!

Wanjiru Speaks and Speaks!

It’s been a very busy couple of months in the public arena for our founder and Executive Director Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, whose invitations for speaking engagements and panel discussions have soared in recent months! She was thrilled with the opportunities to address and engage with new audiences in the Bay Area, including the Stanford Women’s Leadership Conference on April 7th, the Muslim Students Association’s Arab Spring forum at Mills College on April 10th, the Commonwealth Club on May 2nd, and the Stanford Women in Electrical Engineering’s EWIDE conference on May 3rd.

Do One Thing For Diversity Day 2012

As an honoree of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), Akili Dada is participating in a global campaign called “Do One Thing for Diversity and Inclusion” which culminates on May 21st, the worldwide Day for Cultural Diversity. Organized by UNAOC, UNESCO, and a group of top companies from Silicon Valley, the campaign invites people from around the world to take concrete action in support of diversity and inclusion. Based on the Earth Day model that encourages people to take action to preserve the planet, the Do One Thing campaign aims to raise public awareness on the importance of diversity and inclusion and to create a constituency of people who care and speak for it. We encourage our supporters to join us in this effort, and also check out our blog post on May 21st!

Celebrating Women’s Rights: Purity on the 2012 AWID Forum

Program Coordinator Purity Kagwiria shares her thoughts on an inspiring and action-packed week at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) Forum in Istanbul, Turkey that she and Executive Director Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg attended in April. Read her post and get a sense of the excitement from the week!

Day 1

I arrive in Istanbul for the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) international Forum. This is the largest recurring event of its kind, bringing together women’s rights leaders, donor agencies, development practitioners, grassroots leaders and activists from around the world. Held every three to four years, the Forum gives participants an opportunity to network, build alliances, celebrate, and learn in a highly charged atmosphere that fosters deep discussions and sustained personal and professional growth. I am excited that the next seven days will be full of energy, laughter, reflection, commitments, renewal and rejuvenation for the work I am involved in.

Day2

I attend a pre-forum meeting of FRIDA|The Young Feminist Fund, for which I serve as an advisor. We are all excited that we have managed to bring our first grantees to the AWID forum, where they will network amongst themselves and with various networks from their own countries represented at the Forum. For most of our grantees, this is the first funding they have ever received, and they ask many questions. By the end of the day, everyone has made new connections that will help them navigate the space with more confidence.

FRIDA Advisors at the launch of FRIDA| The Young Feminist Fund

Day 3

My fellow FRIDA Fund Advisor Perla Vazquez and I are facilitating a session at the Grassroots Girls Initiative – the pre-forum meeting organized by Mama Cash and Global Fund for Women. We will share our experiences at AWID from a young woman’s perspective, as this is our third forum. Later we go to the YFA pre-forum meeting, where young women are discussing economic power – the theme of the first plenary session – and breaking down the jargon. They also learn what one can expect at AWID and about the various YFA activities that will be running throughout the forum.

Day 4

I take the early bus to get to the forum’s venue. Soon enough, I spot a friend and then see a lot of people I know, including Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, my Director at Akili Dada. We also meet many older feminists who have inspired us either in person or through their writing; Wanjiru says the feeling is like that of a high school reunion.

The first plenary sets the mood for the forum; examining why economic power matters and how we can understand it in the current global context. The plenary speakers, who are brilliant women from various parts of the world, help participants understand what is at stake; why such a forum is important; why the focus on women; and why each of the participants matter. Hearing their ideas on why women need to be involved on a larger scale lights a fire within me on the need to act now!

Wanjiru and I in Istanbul.

Over the next three days, I shuffle between main plenaries, breakout sessions and evening sessions. When Wanjiru and I manage to find each other, we have very interesting conversations about Akili Dada and the larger feminist movement. Some of the highlights for me during the forum include:

‘Visualizing women’s empowerment’: using film as activism:

This session emphasized the need to involve the community one is filming and let them review the videos before sharing them further. Protecting a person’s/community’s privacy and honoring their wishes are also very important. Effectively visualizing women’s empowerment means that the film builds on larger and long term aspects of the issue at hand without degrading the parties involved.

‘Mobilizing resources for Women’s Rights and Feminist Organizing around the World’: Tapping current opportunities and assessing challenges:

AWID research findings on ‘Where is the money for Women’s Rights?’ showed that while there is increased attention and funding to promote women’s and girls’ rights, it is still not enough. Also, there are not enough funds without strings attached. Some of the funding available doesn’t address key issues such as reproductive health rights of women. The plenary explored what needs to be done to avoid falling into traps that continue to entrench stereotypes about women. Read more

Making the case for supporting Young Feminist Activism

This session posed the questions “Why support young feminists? and “Is investing in young feminists the same as investing in girls?” It was agreed that supporting young feminists goes beyond investing in individuals to an ideology and a movement that has a chance at longevity. The current drumbeat for investing in girls may risk promoting stereotypes and can continue negative cycles for women.

Angela at the 2011 Akili Dada Annual Conference

“Once a Dada, always a Dada.”
- Angela Awuor (Akili Dada scholar 2006-2009), in an interview for NTV Kenya (full video below)

In 2006, Angela Awuor was in her first year at Precious Blood Secondary School in Nairobi and was already accruing an overdue fees balance.  That same year, she and three other classmates at Precious Blood were selected by Akili Dada based on their outstanding academic achievements and leadership potential to receive fully-paid four-year scholarships. The scholarships would relieve the girls’ families of the hefty burden of sending their daughters to high school to receive the education each of them deserved. Together, Angela and the three other scholarship recipients formed the first cohort of Akili Dada scholars. They have been paving the way for Akili Dada ever since.

Angela was raised in a polygamous family where resources were scarce. When she applied for the Akili Dada scholarship, her parents had just separated and her mother was having difficulty paying school fees for Angela and her four siblings. The Akili Dada scholarship was a welcome blessing. Throughout Angela’s years in high school, her mother sent a number of appreciation letters to the Akili Dada staff, noting the transformation in her daughter. She shared with us that her daughter had grown into a responsible and determined young woman who knows what she wants in life. The scholarship impacted not only on Angela’s life but her family’s lives as well. With such a large portion of her financial burden lifted, Angela’s mother was able to complete her degree in Business and Office Management and can now better provide for her family.

Angela in 2006 as a brand-new Akili Dada scholar

Angela is passionate about working with children. This can be readily seen through her high school community service projects, most of which were conducted at children’s homes. In one of her self-reflection essays for Akili Dada, Angela shared a dream that she would one day like to start a children’s home.

At the end of high school, Angela excelled in her final exams, scoring an A- in the national examination, placing her among the top 1% of students nationwide. Today she is pursuing a degree in Commerce at the University of Nairobi. During her long holiday last year, Angela served as a Fellow at the Akili Dada office in Nairobi. There, she played a key role in assisting our tiny staff and also served as a mentor to her Dadas still in school. Thanks to her longstanding knowledge of Akili Dada, Angela proved an incredible asset to the team during the scholar selection process in July and at our annual staff retreat last year.

In addition to pursuing her degree, Angela is currently working as an intern with the Credit and Bailing Department at Safaricom Limited, one of the most profitable firms in East Africa.  When we asked her what she thinks of Akili Dada, she said, “Akili Dada gives one wings to fly to wherever they want to go.” Angela continues to embody this statement every day that she pursues her passions and serves as a role model to her peers.

Confident, well-spoken, and educated women like Angela are in short supply in leadership positions within Kenya and across Africa. Watch the interview below, which originally aired in August of 2011 on NTV Kenya, and see for yourself the kind of bright, driven, and compassionate young women Akili Dada is investing in.

Now in its second year, the HOW Fellowship program has recognized four global innovators:  two in Pakistan and one in Nigeria, along with Kamau-Rutenberg in Kenya.  HOW Fellows receive a professional development grant and support for their participation as a delegate to the prestigious Opportunity Collaboration conference held annually in Ixtapa Mexico.

In October 2012 , Dr. Kamau-Rutenberg and other HOW Fellows will travel to the conference, where they will represent the HOW Fund and present their work to the leaders and funders of other social enterprises from around the world.  Having participated in the Opportunity Collaboration for the first time in 2011, Dr. Kamau-Rutenberg has joined the Steering Committee and now plays a larger role in guiding the growth of the Collaboration.

Reflecting on her decision to award a HOW fellowship to Kamau-Rutenberg, Ms. Rabsey stated:

“I was attracted to Akili Dada because of their holistic approach to creating women leaders.  For four years, Akili Dada scholars are engaged in a program of rigorous academics, community service and mentorship all of which instill commitment, leadership and a strong desire to succeed.  No one loses when passionate young women dedicated to social change are brought to the decision-making table.  As a donor, it is easy to be so enthusiastic about Akili Dada!”

In reaction to the news of receiving the HOW Fellowship, Kamau-Rutenberg stated:

“I am deeply honored by the opportunity to be a HOW Fellow. This recognition is tremendous for Akili Dada and helps raise our profile. Sasha’s vision for the HOW Fund is so aligned with Akili Dada’s work that we are glad to walk this journey with her!”

Join us for the 2012 Stanford Women’s Leadership Conference (SWLC) on April 7th from 10am to 4pm at Tressider Union. The theme for this year’s conference is

            “A global conversation: creating opportunity in a connected world.”

The goal of the conference is to help women navigate their goals, harness the power of networks, and transform their communities. In doing so, we will stimulate dialogue on what it means to be connected in the 21st century, on a personal, professional, and global level.

Featuring a diverse line-up of speakers, from human rights lawyers to corporate consultants, the conference celebrates women leaders around the world and  across fields. With inspiring keynotes, hands-on workshops, and a speed mentoring session, the conference will inspire you, motivate you, and provide you with actionable tools and a support network to enhance your leadership at any stage in your career.

The conference is free and open to Stanford students, alumni and Stanford community members of all genders.

I am currently interning at the Akili Dada Kenya office where I have various opportunities to get exposure, knowledge and skills in various settings/issues. The internship allows me to enroll for other activities outside the Akili Dada office and this is how I applied for Be the Change-Kenya program.

Be The Change Kenya is a program that was started by three young adults who were happened to have similar interests in making Kenya a better country by starting with alleviation of child poverty. Different areas around the country were identified with very many needy cases of child poverty. The increasing number of homes, orphanages and rehabilitation centers is a clear indication of abandoned children and those living without their families.

Growing up as a child I experienced child poverty: I know the pain of going to bed on an empty stomach and walking around in tattered clothes. I identified with BTCKE’s vision of finding a long-term solution to child poverty in Kenya. Numbers of poor children are on the increase as there are those children that do not even get the chance to have the care of a home, where they could rely on a daily, assured meal, or even an education.

In BTCKe, young adults are trained into identifying with the needs of a particular child, getting the emotions in their story, getting similarities with their own story and planning to act in order to eliminate the state of struggle and confusion in the young minds of the children.

The training aims at making young adults into good role models; the young brains of the children are molded into looking at the positives that life has to offer, the children are encouraged to explore their abilities and talents. Wholesomely, the training is aimed at achieving a common purpose which is, improving conditions of living of the children. To achieve this, the members of the program are grouped separately and each group attached to a home or orphanage, where they will be offering their services in whichever form, to those that dwell in the homes.

BTCKe believes that, though the amount of work to be done is great, the few laborers are ready and willing to take the bold step and venture into this amazing work of connecting with the children and finding a solution to the big problem that is greatly impairing this young upcoming generation.

A major training took place during the weekend of 11^th and 12^th February, 2012.  The main theme was ‘how to communicate using narratives’. Telling your story and relating it to your listeners is an effective way to pass a message. The main parts of a narrative used for the purpose of communication are:

• The story of self; where one gives an experience in his/her life related to topic at hand.
• The story of us; where the individual relates his/her experience to that of her audience to create a common ground and relate with them.
• The story of now; relate the experience to now so as to make it realistic.

We watched examples of speeches made using stories and the response of the audience was overwhelming. Barrack Obama, Martin Luther King in his speech ‘I have a dream’ and Mahatma Gandhi are some famous people who use (d) this method of communication.

The young adults in the Be the Change-Kenya training all have a passion for change; each has come into contact with child poverty one way or another. I saw passion in the eyes of all who were gathered for the training. When a person spoke you could see a ray of hope in their eyes. Each group has great unique members with great ideas.

I was chosen as a team coordinator where I am in charge of a group of five; I plan to work with my team to bring positive impact in the St. Paul’s Children’s Home where my team is attached. Young people are a resource that needs to be tapped into by all sectors. Many young hands joined can bring positive change and I am glad to be part of the revolution even as Mahatma Gandhi’s words resound in me, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

I love working for Akili Dada because, not only do we strive to educate women, we also ask them to  excel, to be great. Empowerment is a strong tool that women should embrace without fear. It should be the force that women and sisterhood bring to this world. I’m proud to be a woman everyday, and today we get to celebrate and remember how far we have come and look positively into the future.

If you want read more about International Women’s Day, I’ve provided some interesting links below. And if you want to hear from some incredible young women who are paving the way for women everywhere with their courage and strength, look no further than some of our Akili Dada scholars, like Gloria and Sharon, whose stories will inspire you.

Articles on International Women’s Day:

• The Guardian
• United Nations
• Washington Post