Education and Empowerment for Refugee Girls

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

This famous quote by Nelson Mandela has inspired so many girls at RefuSHE, like Ada*. She works hard every day in her schooling to achieve her dreams of becoming a journalist. She is determined to fight for justice in her home country of Burundi for equal treatment, fairness, and peace.

Before coming to Kenya and RefuSHE, Ada lived with her family in Burundi. In 2014, they fled their home due to political conflicts. Ada was just 16 years old. Her parents and Ada first went to Rwanda to seek asylum, but unfortunately her parents were killed there. Ada was left alone. Without anyone to guide her, Ada followed other people on the move and found herself in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). There, she found a kind Congolese woman who took her into her home and became her foster mother. The death of Ada’s parents was hard on her, but her foster mother helped her feel more comfortable and safe throughout the year. After almost a year in DRC, the Congolese foster mother passed away. Ada was alone again and felt even more broken than before.

Shortly after her foster mother’s passing, a friend of her foster mother’s connected Ada with a few families traveling to Kenya. They told her she would be helped and resettled to America if she went to Kenya, so Ada agreed to go with them on this long trip.

Ada traveled to Kenya in late 2014 by truck with a group of women and children. They did not have any travel documents, so they hid inside the canopy of the truck to avoid the border patrol. The journey was long, arduous, and frightening for Ada. The truck had little access to food, water, or a safe space for women and girls to use as bathrooms. After traveling two weeks, the truck brought them to the outskirts of Nairobi to a place called Machakos. No one in Ada’s traveling group could speak English or Kiswahili, and Ada felt so afraid. She wished she were home in Burundi and not in a foreign country with a foreign language. Eventually, the families in the traveling group went their own ways, and Ada was left alone. She didn’t know anyone in Nairobi and had nowhere to go. She was paralyzed with fear. A local vegetable vendor noticed Ada looking tired and hungry. She realized that Ada was not Kenyan and led her to a Congolese woman for help with communication. The Congolese woman talked to Ada in her own language and gave her a warm meal and a place to sleep for the night. Ada felt happy that someone was finally able to understand her and made her feel safe. For the first time in so many months, Ada slept through the night without nightmares or fear that she would be abandoned again. The next day, the Congolese woman talked to her friend, Beatrice*, also a refugee, about Ada. Beatrice offered to take Ada in, and later that day the Congolese woman helped Ada board a bus to meet Beatrice. Beatrice met Ada in the city and brought her home to the Kasarani neighborhood in Nairobi. Beatrice took care of her for a few months and sent her to a Catholic school. Ada was thrilled to be able to go to school and to have a safe place to live.

Shortly after Ada moved in, Beatrice found out that she would be resettled to the United States. Ada was devastated to be abandoned again, but Beatrice helped introduce her to a Kenyan couple from a local church who agreed to take her in as a housemaid. Her new living situation though was not as safe and happy as it was with Beatrice. Without Beatrice for support, Ada couldn’t continue school and her job as a maid required long working hours. It became so bad that she thought about ending her life.

Ada’s situation with the Kenyan couple worsened when the woman’s husband began to verbally and sexually abuse her. The wife would leave for two weeks at a time, leaving Ada alone with her abusive husband. The man would rape Ada and lock her inside the house. He threatened to report her to the authorities as an undocumented refugee if she told anyone that he was abusing her. This made it difficult for neighbors to know what was going on. Fortunately, a neighbor eventually took notice that Ada rarely left the house. On one of the rare occasions when the abusive husband let her leave the house for a short period, the neighbor came over to speak with her. Ada knew a little Kiswahili by this time and confided in the neighbor about the abuse and the kind of life she was going through. This woman was kind enough to take her to UNHCR to report her case. The UNHCR staff conducted a health assessment and found out that Ada was pregnant.

Ada felt that life was unfair, God was unfair, and nothing made sense to her. She kept asking God why she had to go through all these woes. Reflecting on this point in her life, Ada shared, “It seemed as if my life was cursed. It was like there was a spell around me attracting bad omens.”

In August 2015, UNHCR assisted Ada with her asylum application, and she was granted asylum and refugee status in February 2016. They also reported Ada's abuse to the police so her abuser could be arrested. Unfortunately, the police learned that the couple fled the area after neighbors found out that the man had been abusing Ada.

UNHCR further helped Ada by referring her to RefuSHE for more targeted care in August 2015. Ada hoped it would become a more permanent home and joined RefuSHE’s Girls Empowerment Project (GEP) to continue her primary and secondary education. In January 2016, she moved to the RefuSHE Safe House where she received medical attention and help preparing for the birth of her child.

Looking back on her first few months with RefuSHE, Ada shared, “I was so upset and traumatized, I didn’t believe or even accept that I was pregnant. But with the help of counsellors and experience sharing with other girls, I started to loosen up. For quite some time, I kept to myself and was afraid of making friendships because it seemed every time I stabilized, calamity struck. I however started bonding with the staff and a few girls who seemed able to read my moods. They would talk to me and assure me that all will be well. I accepted myself and I felt that I was not alone. I felt protected and cared for since I was provided with all that I needed. I had clothes to wear, a bed of my own, and medical care was provided. When I gave birth, I named my baby boy Benedict! I named him after the RefuSHE dad [RefuSHE Country Director Benedict Nganga] who was and still is all loving and caring to all girls in RefuSHE. My baby is my hope and strength. Benedict as our daddy represents hope and life to us and that is what I wanted with my Benedict!”

After the birth of her son, Ada was assessed and moved up to Level Two of GEP. In May 2017, after living in the Safe House for over a year, she moved out to live in the community. Even though this was a big change, Ada felt that she and her son would be alright thanks to RefuSHE’s support, preparation, and assurance. Within a few years of joining the GEP, she was registered for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education, the Kenyan government’s accredited national exam. She passed the exam in December 2016 and proceeded to join the GEP Level Four. While Ada takes her GEP education classes, her child, Benedict, is part of the Early Childhood Education Center (ECDC) where he receives care and early childhood education.

While pursuing her primary and secondary education in the GEP, Ada also takes vocational training classes to learn basic skills in tailoring and dressmaking. She sat for the National Industrial Training Authority exam in December 2016 and earned her tailoring certificate. This certificate is the same that Kenyan students can attain, and it allows Ada to be more competitive if she decides to pursue tailoring after graduating from RefuSHE. Due to her commitment and diligence, she joined the Artisan Collective in January 2017. The Artisan Collective is RefuSHE’s social enterprise program that empowers young girls to be self-reliant entrepreneurs upon exit from RefuSHE. Members of the Artisan Collective apply their tailoring and sewing skills to hand-dye textiles and make scarves, scrunchies, and home goods. Ada earns a stipend for her work in the Artisan Collective, which is her sole source of livelihood and a means to feed her baby and pay her bills. Ada is still figuring out what her future holds after exiting RefuSHE’s programs. She has saved money since joining the Artisan Collective so she can one day open a business.

“[I] [a]m so happy since my child’s welfare is also taken care of in the ECDC facility while I attend class. My life is looking up and I am happy today that I came to RefuSHE. I have a home; I have a family,” said a smiling Ada. She feels safe and happy coming to school every day and has made many friends in school and at the Safe House. 

Ada concluded our session by saying, “To the world, RefuSHE is an organization, to me and my Benedict, it is a safe haven, a home, a mirror for the future.”