Kakenya Ntaiya

Kakenya Ntaiya is a Kenyan educator, feminist and social activist. She is the founder and president of the Kakenya Center for Excellence, a primary boarding school for girls. The center requires that parents agree not to subject their enrolled daughters to female genital mutilation or forced marriage. Ntaiya is the recipient of a number of awards that recognize her work to educate girls, including the 2013 Global Women’s Rights Award from the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Kakenya Ntaiya: Fighting Child Marriage

This March, for Women’s History Month, the Ms. Blog is profiling Wonder Women who have made history—and those who are making history right now. Join us each day as we bring you the stories of iconic and soon-to-be-famous feminist change-makers. Kakenya Ntaiya has ambition to spare. She told me once, while we hiked together in Northern California, […]

Too Young to Marry

The following is excerpted from Too Young to Marry in the Winter 2015 issue of Ms. Subscribe today and get the issue delivered straight to your doorstep! When Kakenya Ntaiya was a 7-year-old schoolgirl in Kenya, she worried that her family would soon marry her off and she would be forced to become a child raising children. She had […]

Feminist Heroes of 2013

It’s hard to not get discouraged at a time when women are still fighting for the right to control their bodies, same-sex relations are criminalized in 76 countries, rape culture and victim-blaming run rampant and women are still trafficked for sex and slave labor around the globe. However, it’s important to take a moment to […]

Kakenya Ntaiya Needs Your Votes!

Kakenya Ntaiya, like most young girls in her Kenyan village, was forced to undergo female genital mutilation at a young age. Many girls in Africa undergo this gruesome centuries-old practice and are then promptly married off. For most, it means the end of not only their childhood, but their education as well. But 14-year-old Kakenya […]

Global Feminist Heroes Honored in L.A.

An Afghan rapper. The founder of the first primary school for girls in a Kenyan village. A trailblazing member of Congress who fights to create an AIDS-free generation. An advocate for women’s and children’s rights and empowerment. Tonite in Los Angeles, the Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.) will award these four women with its […]