Giving hope to girls in Kenya.
Wamba Girls Rescue Center saves girls from sexual & gender-based violence to give them a brighter future.
We provide a refuge for girls at risk of sexual and gender-based violence, which threatens countless girls throughout Kenya and East Africa. As a small center with just a few staff members but many passionate volunteers, we open our hearts to help these girls. Founded in 2011, we’ve since rescued over 120 girls in our community, giving them safe homes, nutritious food, education, career training, and counseling. We work closely with the community and the local government.
It costs under $2 per day to care for a girl in our center and send her to school.
As a nonprofit organization, we are supported entirely through donations and volunteers in Kenya and around the world. Our website and online donations are managed by our partner, Regrow, an American nonprofit organization that helps solve social and environmental problems.
Threats to Girls
Many girls in Northern Kenya reach adolescence with very few choices for the future. Due to high poverty and illiteracy rates, as well as a very traditional view of gender roles, the only viable option most girls think they have is early marriage. Unfortunately, while our pastoralist communities and Samburu culture have many beautiful, deeply-rooted cultural practices, some of them are retrogressive and destroy the lives of young girls. The primary issues we are addressing in the community include female genital mutilation (FGM), beading, rape, forced abortion, early marriage, and HIV / AIDS.
Rescuing & Educating Girls
Our top priority is to identify and rescue girls who are facing early marriage or sexual violence. This is a risky intervention both for the girls and the rescuer, both at the moment of rescue and for a long time afterwards; therefore, the continued safety and security of the girls and our staff is our primary concern.
At our center in Wamba, we provide the girls with a safe place to live, nutritious food, and community. We work with them to improve their choices for commencing adulthood through education, alternative rights of passage, entrepreneurship training, and counseling. We also educate girls about their rights under Kenyan law.
Our Story
Wamba Nomadic Girls Rescue Center was founded in 2011 by Rebecca Lalmakar as a registered NGO in Kenya. In our first year, we rescued 24 girls and housed them with volunteers in the community. Since then, we have rescued over 120 girls and are working to expand our facilities to support many more girls in need.
Our girls need your help
It costs us under $2 per day to care for a girl in our center and rescue her from sexual and gender-based violence.
We depend entirely on donors and volunteers. The COVID-19 pandemic has made things even harder for us to ensure everyone’s health.
Our facilities are now at capacity and yet there are many more girls in our region who desperately need to be rescued from violence right now. It is our hope that someday we will be able to provide housing, food, water, and education for every girl who needs us.
