Volunteers

Karen Austrian
Vice President, Binti Pamoja Founder

Karen Austrian has a Masters in Public Health in Reproductive and Adolescent Health and a BA in Women's and Gender Studies, both from Columbia University.  She is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya, working at the Population Council in their Poverty, Gender, and Youth program.  Her current work involves coordinating a learning network on programming for and with adolescent girls, developing appropriate financial services for adolescent girls, and providing technical support to a range of girls programs throughout Kenya.   After finishing her BA, Karen received a small grant to do work with adolescent girls in Kenya, which led to her co-founding and facilitating Binti Pamoja.  After the leadership of the program had transitioned to young Kenyan women, Karen returned to the States and coordinated a women's health and HIV program in one of New York State's women's prisons.  While working on her master's degree, she worked as a consultant for the Population Council on a variety of projects on adolescent girls programming.  Throughout, she has remained as a close advisor to Binti Pamoja and through her work was involved in developing Binti's new financial literacy and Safe Spaces programs.