Stories & News

In many African communities, gender-based violence and human trafficking are not distant issues — they live in homes, in migration journeys, and in silence. And yet, within these same spaces, survivors are rising. Not just as voices. As leaders.
Survivor leadership asks us to shift how we see power. It moves us from viewing survivors only through harm, toward recognizing them as experts, organizers, and change-makers. When survivors lead — with the right support, skills, and resources — solutions become grounded, culturally rooted, and built to last.

Wounded Healers International was born from lived experience and from a belief that survivors are not broken people in need of pity; they are leaders in waiting. Our work now spans Kenya and Maine. In Kenya, we support young mothers and girls impacted by sexual violence through safe housing, education support, childcare, and community-based empowerment programs. In Maine, we create culturally grounded healing spaces for immigrant women who are navigating trauma, isolation, fear, and the complexity of rebuilding life in a new country. I am deeply involved in the fundraising because I believe that when the mission is honest and urgent, it deserves to be resourced. I am not afraid to ask. I am not afraid to knock. I have learned that doors do open—not always immediately, but persistently.

Why healing and leading are not two different movements — and what it looks like when survival refuses to stay quiet.
In most of the world, leadership is framed as something you acquire — a title, a credential, a seat at a table. But in the communities I come from, and in the work we do at Wounded Healers International, leadership looks different.

It looks like a woman who sat in a healing circle last year and now runs one. It looks like a teen mother who was told her future was over and went on to build something for other girls. It looks like survival that refuses to stay quiet.