Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner

Find Me Unafraid

Love, Loss and Hope in an African Slum

Ecco Press, September 2015

Kennedy Odede grew up in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, where more than a million people live in an area the size of Central Park – without sewage systems, roads, running water, or access to basic needs like health care and education.  By the age of ten, he was living on the streets, doing whatever he could to survive.  As a teenager, desperate to improve his circumstances and those of his family and community, he took twenty cents and bought a soccer ball – and used that ball to bring young people together to start a movement.   He called it Shining Hope for Communities.

Jessica Posner was an undergraduate studying theater at Wesleyan who, in 2007, spent a semester abroad in Kenya – chiefly because it was as far from home as she could get.  Jessica had heard about Kennedy’s work on a street theater project for young people, and asked to join him in his efforts.  Quickly realizing she would have no real credibility with the young people as a white exchange student living in the city, she decided to live in Kibera – the first white person ever to do so.  Kennedy was dead against the idea; she moved in anyway; and the two fell in love.

Against near-impossible odds, Jessica and Kennedy have built a life together, in a story as unlikely as they come.  Under threat of death during the 2007 election violence, Kennedy escapes Kenya, with Jessica’s help; she persuades him to apply to college in the U.S. despite having no formal education, and he is admitted to Wesleyan, with a full scholarship; torn between his lifelong wish for an education and loyalty to his community in Kibera, the two decide to start a school for girls in Kibera; they win funding and, over the summer, start the Kibera School for Girls, Kibera’s first tuition-free school.   After her graduation, Jessica returns to Kibera, living there on her own and helping to run the school. In May, 2012, Kennedy is commencement speaker at his graduation from Wesleyan, the first person from Kibera to get a degree from an elite American university; in June, 2012, Jess and Kennedy are married.

Now in its fourth year, the Kibera School for Girls has 140 girls currently enrolled. Shining Hope for Communities has expanded their mission to operate a women’s health clinic, offer AIDS education, gender violence advocacy services, provide clean water and toilets, a library, a community center and a place for girls to live when home is not safe – services that benefit over 50,000 people.

In SHINING HOPE: A Story of Love’s Audacity to Change the World, Kennedy and Jessica will tell their story – and the story of their efforts to build a truly groundbreaking model to relieve poverty, in Kibera and beyond.