This summer, I left behind my day-to-day world as a suburban mother of four— a world of dance classes and laundry piles—to fly across the ocean, desert, and mountains and visit the world of Neema Project, a program for resilient young women in rural Kenya.
For the first time ever, we hosted a community run raising funds for mental health support for at-risk children and youth at the local school! We were blown away by the local and international support. Our team hosted an incredible event with over 300 school children participating. The counseling services that will now provide for hundreds at-risk children and youth! Thank YOU for making this happen.
Jackline works specifically in trauma-informed counseling because she sees that trauma pushes people to the edge. She works to help people find joy again as they heal.
In many rural Kenyan communities, Christian faith is familiar — but for young women, the opportunity to explore Scripture personally is often out of reach. With limited access to Bibles and education, their understanding of God is shaped more by secondhand messages than by thoughtful engagement, leaving them vulnerable to confusion or imbalance.
Lydiah was raised by her mother after her father passed away while her mother was still pregnant. Life was hard. They struggled for basic needs like food, clothes, and education. She did manage to go to school until grade 12, but was unable to go to college because she lacked the fees.
Jentrix used to do casual jobs, such as washing peoples clothes, but with her job at Neema she is now able to support her children, her two parents, and her brother financially.
Now at Neema, Martin has an income that allows him to support his wife, six children, and his two brothers. On top of that, he gets to help the young women at Neema. Martin ensures that the compound and his Neema family are safe. He helps provide the students, their children, and the staff with a level of security and comfort that allows them to learn and find a renewed sense of hope.
Nearly half the young women who join Neema are already mothers themselves. Still teenagers, these young moms face deep emotional wounds. With their infants come months of hardship: dropping out of school, finding casual labor, enduring shame and stigma from loved ones, the heartbreak of being abandoned by the child’s father—on top of the exhaustion that comes with all newborns and the challenges of living on less than $2/day in rural Kenya. But hope is not lost. These young mothers have found a place of transformation.
As a counselor, Pamela understands what the young women go through at home and she has been able to help them restore physically, mentally, and emotionally. She helps prepare them to face the world. She has a passion for working with the young women and teaching them to find the best solutions to their problems.
Brenda Rewrites Her Narrative: Making a way out of extreme poverty, Brenda found restoration, was equipped to provide for her son, and began a new chapter in her life.
Irine loves spending time with the students and providing a shoulder for them to lean on. She stresses the fact that God provides a second chance and when he does, you need to use it. She says that in her own life, God helped her learn to forgive. She harbored bitterness for the situation she was in that led to the birth of her first son. However, she learned to move forward and loves her son very much. She uses her experiences as motivation to help Neema’s students learn to forgive the fathers of their babies. Teen pregnancies usually stop young women from continuing in school, so they often feel bitter about this loss. But at Neema, they learn to move on and love their children without reservation.
Right. now, Ann is learning tailoring, Priscillah is training in catering, and Elizabeth is studying agribusiness—three strategic career paths to provide for themselves and their families, and break the cycle of extreme poverty.
Victorina teaches her students skills that will benefit them throughout their whole lives. Not only is she teaching them sewing and tailoring, but she also encourages them when they doubt their skills and equips them with courage to find employment after graduating. The students even call her Mama — and she loves it!
Joyce, Neema’s Head of Training & Curriculum, says, “Giving them hope through passing Neema will make them continue with life and start a new chapter in life. Self-esteem will help them know they are worthy and know their values, accepting new challenges, being resilient and not fearing uncertainty.”
See our top 10 photos from 2024, showing how your generosity has impacted the lives of young women and children in rural Kenya! Faith shares what she has learned in the classroom at Neema and what she plans to do with her tailoring skills after graduation.
Hellen, Neema Counselor and Social Worker, says, “Getting education empowered me as a woman with knowledge and skills which I also use to empower the young girls at Neema.”
The graduates said that Neema has really transformed their lives. They not only learned new skills through the training, but they also developed a personal relationship with God thanks to the morning and evening devotions at Neema, and felt that the counseling services increased their self-esteem and improved how they relate with others.
“I used to do casual work, I saved and I started a business frying chips, but it did not end well, so there was this day that I prayed to God and told him that I needed work. Like two weeks later there was an advertisement [for work at Neema]. I checked the requirements and decided to give it a try and through God's doing I was employed.”
As a teenager, Winnie was abandoned by her father and her mother passed away. She had to drop out of school by 9th grade because she lived in extreme poverty and couldn’t afford school fees. Like many vulnerable young women in rural Kenya, she became pregnant.
While at Neema, young women (and their children) are provided with essential medical care that would otherwise not be accessible. Transportation to healthcare centers ensures that students and children can visit doctors, undergo imaging and testing, and receive physical therapy when needed.
