Volunteers

Karen Austrian
Vice President, Binti Pamoja Founder

Karen Austrian has her Masters in Public Health in Reproductive and Adolescent Health and her BA in Women’s and Gender Studies both from Columbia University.  She is currently a staff associate with the Population Council in their Poverty, Gender, and Youth division and is based in Nairobi, Kenya developing a learning center on programming for and with adolescent girls.   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.