Global Partners: Hope for Kenya Slum Adolescents Initiative

If you’ve subscribed to this magazine for a while, you’ve heard about Melvine Ouyo. We met her when she was the Clinic Director at Family Health Options Kenya, soon after FHOK lost US funding in 2017, thanks to Trump’s Global Gag Rule. She has been a consultant to the advocacy program for our sister organization, Population Connection Action Fund, since then. She joined the Board of Directors of Population Connection in 2021 and is now the Vice Chair.

In 2018, Melvine founded Hope for Kenya Slum Adolescent Initiative (HKSAI), which works to advance opportunities for low-income Kenyan adolescent girls living in slums through investments in their education, health, skills training, life skills, and job prospects. Melvine serves as HKSAI’s Executive Director.

As a young girl growing up in a small village in Busia County, Kenya, Melvine saw girls drop out of school because of teen pregnancies and then struggle to gain employment and financial freedom for themselves and their children. Born to a 16-year-old mother, she went through a similar experience herself.

“Defying all odds, I promised myself to work to reverse structural biases that expose women, girls, and other vulnerable individuals to such vices and depravities as gender inequities, early and forced marriages, gender-based violence, and lack of education, by providing them with opportunities for social and economic empowerment.”

Hope for Kenya Slum Adolescents Initiative works with Kenyan adolescents, with a special focus on girls, who are living in slums in and around Nairobi, Kenya’s capital and largest city. The organization helps teens attain high quality educations through scholarships and provides technical skills training to improve their job prospects. HKSAI even offers financial resources and information about entrepreneurship to help young people start their own successful small businesses.

“Scholarships for basic secondary school and technical and vocational education and training colleges have impacted these girls’ lives and those of their families in ways and magnitude we are thrilled about. Their mindsets have changed for the better, and they have applicable skills that no one can take away from them. Those who didn’t see a chance of joining secondary school now appreciate the miracle that came and are now in high school, working and walking toward independent, healthy, and dignified lives for themselves and their families. The young mothers who previously slept hungry with their babies can now put bread on their tables thanks to our entrepreneurship program.”

HKSAI provides counseling and mentoring services to empower young people with the information they need to lead healthy and dignified lives. The program covers adolescent sexuality and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, and substance abuse.

The organization also creates a space for young people to help advance social justice through community dialogues that engage policymakers on issues affecting young people, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, early and forced marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), and gender-based violence. Finally, HKSAI lobbies for progressive policies on matters relevant to adolescents, including sexual and reproductive health.

If you’d like to learn more about Hope for Kenya Slum Adolescents Initiative, you can read a longer interview with Melvine here. You can also visit the HKSAI website directly at hopeksai.org.

“Investing in girls’ education and providing women with access to reproductive health information and services slows down population growth, easing pressure on natural resources and helping to mitigate the climate crisis.”

–Melvine Ouyo

Thank you to all of our generous donors who make our Global Partners program possible! Without you, we wouldn’t be able to support the incredible work of the 19 small but impactful organizations currently benefiting from your contributions.