Empowering Refugee Women--Heshima Kenya

The welfare of women and girls in the developing world has been a constant topic of conversation in international social welfare.  Gender violence and women’s education are on everyone’s lips this month as the world struggles to develop a strategy to rescue the 250+ girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria. Although countries and societies have made comparatively rapid progress in the advancement of women’s rights, economic opportunity, education, and health in the past 50 years, there is still much work to be done.  Debates in the West center on strategies to empower women in less-wealthy nations—how do we respect women’s agency, develop culturally appropriate programs and policies, and create sustained change? 

Hilary Presper, a second-year admin student at SSA, has been wrestling with these questions in her internship this year.  Hilary is placed at Heshima Kenya, an organization based in Chicago that works on the ground in Nairobi to assist unaccompanied and separated refugee women and young girls.  Heshima Kenya’s safehouse shelters 100 girls and provides them with mental health services, educational opportunities, and mentorship. “It’s extremely important [to the organization] that the girls are able to follow their dreams,” Hilary says.  The organization’s empowerment model of service and development focuses on creating equal opportunities to these refugee women and girls, affirming their right to self-determination but also guiding them as they create lives in a new country.  These refugee girls and young women are provided with academic education as well as lessons in Swahili and Kenyan life.  They face the added challenged of integrating into an alien society, on top of being unaccompanied, generally lower-educated, and often young mothers.

One of the newest developments in the organization has been the Maisha Collective—an entrepreneurial project that teaches the girls and young women to hand-dye scarves which are then sold around the world. As part of the Maisha Collective, members are required to attend financial literacy and parenting classes as well as work regularly with a caseworker. The organization pays the women for their work, which is not based on the profit of the scarf sales.  In this way, the Maisha Collective works in a similar way to Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs, which have been shown to improve women’s social and economic standing in a variety of cultural contexts.  The hope, Hilary says, is that the collective will become self-sustaining and client-led, furthering the women’s agency in their resettlement process.  The idea for selling the scarves as a revenue stream came from the clients themselves, showing that Heshima Kenya is committed to remaining culturally sensitive and client-driven.

This year of internship with Heshima Kenya has allowed Hilary to reflect on different international social welfare and development strategies.  “It’s weird coming to terms with being an NGO in this problematic environment,” she says.  On the one hand, Hilary recognizes that Heshima Kenya serves a niche population that would otherwise be unassisted—the Kenyan government does not have social welfare programs for refugees and many of the girls face extreme prejudice in Kenyan society.  However, Hilary also sees the NGO-ization of development and social welfare as a problem in a part of the world that needs a strong government presence in this area of service provision.  The fact that the Heshima Kenya was started by two Westerners—one of whom is the Executive Director, also has the potential to be problematic.  But, Heshima Kenya seems committed to employing indigenous workers when possible so that strategies can continue to be effective, sustainable, and culturally appropriate. The organization only employs Kenyans on the ground, though Hilary thinks the organization would be willing to hire a former client.  “The problem is that they come to us with such low levels of education,” she says.  “There hasn’t been anyone yet who could pursue professional training.” However, the organization has been able to connect in Chicago with a former client who has resettled in the United States, a young woman who has become an integral staff member.

Heshima Kenya’s model adheres to the philosophy of successful women’s welfare services:  empowering women, creating space for clients to participate in the program development and evaluation, and remaining flexible to adapt to culturally specific conditions.  You can read more about Heshima Kenya at their website (http://www.heshimakenya.org/index.php) and learn about one client’s story through an online graphic novel (http://grassrootsgirls.tumblr.com/Fatuma). You can also contribute to the organization’s work by purchasing a beautiful scarf made by the Maisha Collective—just in time for summer!