BINTI PAMOJA

The Binti Pamoja (Daughters United) Center is a reproductive health and women's rights center for 11 to 18 year-old girls in Kibera.

Founded in 2002 by Karen Austrian and Emily Verellen, the Binti Pamoja Center creates and provides a safe space for adolescent girls in Kibera, an otherwise hostile environment to this group.  The Center has helped girls explore the issues that are prevalent in their daily lives; violence against women, rape, prostitution, HIV/AIDS, female genital mutilation, poverty, sexual abuse, unequal access to education, lack of reproductive health care and information, and demanding domestic responsibilities.  The Center uses photography, drama, writing, and group discussion to investigate such issues in depth, allowing the girls to confront these issues and learn technical information about reproductive health and financial literacy.  Furthermore, the Center hosts monthly speakers and field trips, community service projects, family events, and peer education programs designed to further empower the girls and provide an outlet for them to educate their communities through drama, a newsletter, and youth forums.  A new group of girls is recruited into the Center each year, and after two years they graduate into the alumni group where they take on leadership roles in the Center and start new girls groups in the community.