I used to dream of a community where children could grow up not feeling afraid.
Where women didn’t have to scream every night. Where survivors could rise as leaders and lean into their lived experiences to bring the change they wanted to see. The dream didn’t come from some abstract place, it came from living in Kibera, from knowing what it feels like when poverty exposes girls to vulnerabilities, from understanding firsthand what happens when children don’t have the language to recognize violence as it’s happening to them.
When I joined Freely in Hope at the university level, I had already finished high school and spent time volunteering in my community. I worked with different organizations in Kibera, but something was missing. They were doing important work focusing on mental health, distributing pads, addressing various needs, but no one was specifically talking about what I knew was happening behind closed doors. No one was directly addressing the issue of girls being raped, children being defiled, the sexual and gender-based violence that was such a big challenge in our community.
I saw the gap clearly because I had lived it.
Going back to school changed everything, but not in the way you might expect. The education I received gave me the confidence to practice my gifts, to speak about the ideas I had been carrying for creating a safer Kibera. At school, I learned that my voice is powerful, that my voice is important, that my voice could bring healing not just for me, but for others who lived through similar challenges. Education provided me with a voice for myself and for others. But I knew I couldn’t be a full-time student and disconnect from the work that mattered most to me. I knew that just being in school for four years without doing anything would mean losing touch with my community.
I asked Nikole, Freely in Hope’s founder: Can I be a student and still contribute to the organization’s mission? That’s when she designed the fellowship program. I was actually the first fellow at Freely in Hope because Nikole had to create something that could fit my school schedule while allowing me to contribute. That deep conviction of pouring fresh knowledge back into my community, of turning my learnings into action, of transforming theory into lived experience was everything to me. I couldn’t just sit in classrooms learning about social change without being part of creating it where I came from.
My own journey informed everything about what would eventually become Pendo’s Power. Having faced the realities of abuse while living in Kibera, understanding the realities of poverty, and seeing how girls were exposed to so many vulnerabilities because of the conditions we lived in, all of that showed me why it was crucial to use my own experience to inspire change through prevention strategies. Not just responding after harm has happened, but addressing the root causes of abuse before children become victims. Pendo’s Power was born from a specific gap I identified through my own story and the stories of many survivors in the Freely in Hope community who were abused when they were children. What I realized was this: many children are vulnerable to abuse because they don’t have the language, the confidence, or even the ability to recognize violence when it’s happening to them. That’s why so many of us were exposed to it; we didn’t even know, couldn’t even comprehend it as it was happening. And then I saw another gap: a lot of caregivers didn’t know how to respond when they realized their children had been abused. They didn’t know what to say or do when their children came to them and disclosed what had happened.
Pendo’s Power was designed to fill both gaps. For children, we use storytelling to equip them with language in the simplest, most age-appropriate, and fun way possible, through animations, music, and games – the methods that children actually learn best. For caregivers, Pendo’s Power is a tool to help them recognize, prevent, and respond to child sexual abuse in a trauma-informed way. It’s about giving both children and adults the capacity to create safety together.
What makes this program different is that it’s centered on my own lived experience, which is unique to me. That gives our approach the empathy, authenticity, and depth required to transform oppressive systems. When we go into communities, there’s often a lot of theory about what child sexual abuse looks like. But when I’m able to draw from my own story, my own experience, it turns that theory into something real. Communities resonate with it. They see that prevention can be actionable, both for families and communities. It’s not just statistics or concepts, it’s someone standing in front of them saying, “This happened to me, and here’s what could have made a difference.”
The most fulfilling part of this journey has been watching other survivors evolve into leaders. Maryanne Koki, a Freely in Hope alumni with a degree in Social Work, is taking up leadership of our child protection work. This shift to another alumni and survivor leader has been deeply meaningful. What started as my dream in high school has evolved into child protection workshops through Pendo’s Power, and now Maryanne is carrying this mission forward with fresh ideas and passion. It reminds me that healing can multiply when we empower leaders to lead, when we give them opportunities to take one idea or solution and make it even better for our communities. If you look at Pendo’s Power now, at our entire child protection work and how it has scaled over the years, we’ve reached over 10,000 children. I couldn’t have done it alone. I absolutely couldn’t have done it without Maryanne coming into the picture. There’s real power in working with other survivors and giving them opportunities to lead.
The impact shows up in ways that matter. We’re seeing children learn to identify unsafe situations and speak up. Children come to us and say, “This uncle touches my private parts,” or “This neighbor makes me feel uncomfortable in this way.” We’re able to work with educators to communicate with parents and find ways to make these kids feel safer. We’ve even had children share about abuse that was utterly unknown to their caregivers. Finally, children are gaining the language to discuss what happened to them. Beyond the numbers, though reaching over 10,000 children is significant, what moves me most is seeing them report experiences that made them feel unsafe, seeing them speak up with confidence, hearing them articulate, “These are my private parts. No one should touch them. My body is my own. It belongs to me. My voice is my power.” That, to me, is everything. Because I know that’s sustainable. That’s something they’ll remember as they grow up. It will be the foundation of the kind of relationships they build, the kind of boundaries they set, the kind of lives they create. For caregivers, we’re seeing them respond with greater empathy and action. People aren’t just hearing cases and keeping quiet anymore. They’re not perpetuating silence. They’re taking action. We had an incident at one of the schools we work with, called Becky School—a locally owned school in Kibera, East Africa’s largest slum. When a child disclosed that a neighbor had abused them, the parent took action, and the neighbor was arrested. Through these workshops and conversations, schools and communities are becoming safer for our children. Every single session we conduct helps us move closer to our goal of creating violence-free communities.
When survivors lead, the transformation is sustainable. It becomes more than just helping individual clients; it becomes collective action. It becomes a movement. There’s a ripple effect that happens in communities, strengthening protection systems, inspiring every single stakeholder in this journey to join forces for a world free of sexual and gender-based violence. When survivors lead, it becomes a movement, and a movement is more powerful than one person pushing for change.
So, here’s what I want other survivors navigating their healing journeys to know: healing is not a linear process. Our healing journeys look different. For some, it’s faster, for some it’s slower. Show yourself some grace as you walk through it. But I also want you to know this healing is just the beginning because, once you start to heal, you realize that your story has the power to bring hope. You realize you can use your story and your voice to transform lives. And once you realize that, you’re able to start where you are, with the community around you. Do not be afraid to start your own journey of healing. It will look different for everyone, but be willing to embrace it because it’s the beginning of a new era for you. A new era where you get to use your voice to inspire and transform the lives of other survivors and advocates.
And to those supporting survivor leadership, when you invest in us, you’re investing in lasting, sustainable change. When survivors are equipped with knowledge and resources to lead, we start reimagining the systems that oppressed us. We start thinking of solutions that fill the gaps we experienced in those systems. That’s how we build safer communities. It’s as simple as that. When you invest in survivor leadership, you’re investing in building safer communities for all, which feeds directly into our mission of ending sexual violence.
LYDIA MATIOLI
Program & Partnerships Director
If you want to bring Pendo’s Power to your community, you can purchase a copy here! You can also work with Freely in Hope to provide a child abuse prevention training for adults or a body safety workshop for children. Whether you’re a teacher, parent, social worker, or children’s ministry leader, we can create a program that best fits your communities needs. Contact us today!
