CBA Record February_March 2016

Leaders of Kenyan Anti-Poverty Movement Share Their Story at CBA Luncheon

By William A. Zolla CBA Editorial Board

I n 2007, Wesleyan University junior Jes- sica Posner traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, to spend a semester volunteering to teach theater to boys and girls in Kibera, the city’s largest and most notorious slum, which lacks paved roads, electricity, run- ning water, sewage and sanitation systems, and any meaningful programs for health care or education. Shortly after arriving in Nairobi, Jessica began working with Ken- nedy Odede, a 23-year-old community activist who had grown up amidst the violence and extreme poverty of Kibera, but persevered to found a grassroots social services organization called Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO), which was gaining international attention for its initiatives inside the slum. SHOFCO began in 2004 as a soccer group, which Odede started after spending his last twenty cents on a used soccer ball. Yet by the time Posner met Odede three years later, SHOFCO had expanded its work to tackle Kibera’s most pervasive and intractable social and economic problems, including gender inequality, widespread crime, domestic abuse, and rape, as well as lack of economic opportunities, clean water, health care, and education, particu- larly for women and girls. Posner immediately immersed herself in SHOFCO’s work and soon insisted on moving in with Odede in his small, one-room, home in the heart of Kibera. As they worked and lived together over the course of several months, Odede and Posner fell in love, even though she would be returning to college in the United States and he had neither the ability nor the desire to leave Kibera. Ironically, civil unrest in

CBAPresident PatriciaHolmes also interviewed Posner andOdede atWYCCChicago as part of a CBA TV program that told their story. Photo courtesy of WYCC.

Kenya following national elections in 2007 may have helped the couple stay together, as Odede became a political target and Posner worked tirelessly to help him escape the country by gaining admission and a scholarship to Wesleyan, where he gradu- ated with honors in 2012. Since then, Odede and Posner have worked together to turn SHOFCO into an international movement, and in 2009, they were instrumental in opening the Kibera School for Girls, the slum’s first free primary school for girls. In December, the CBA hosted a lun- cheon for Posner and Odede, who have chronicled their remarkable story in a new book titled, “Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum.” After opening remarks by CBA president Patricia Brown Holmes, Seventh Circuit Judge Ann Williams introduced Posner and Odede, whom she first met during a trip to Kenya and described as “two of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever met in my life.” SHOFCO now employs a staff of over 200, and serves more than 76,000 people.

It also recently opened a second school for girls inMathare, another Kenyan slum, and hopes to continue to improve educational opportunities for girls throughout Africa. Meanwhile, Odede and Posner found time in their extremely busy schedules to get married in 2012, in the back yard of Posner’s family home in Denver. They now split their time living in both Nairobi and New York City, where SHOFCO opened its American headquarters. For more information on the CBA’s events and activities, go to www. chicagobar.org.

12 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016