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In 2012, I met 22-year-old Anne. Anne had gotten into prostitution when she was 9 years old. She was staying with her grandmother and her younger siblings because her grandmother was old and fragile. She was the sole provider for her family.   She resorted to begging in the streets to make ends meet.

 

One day, she met a man who offered to give her food if she had sex with him.  That is how she was introduced to prostitution to sustain herself and her family. On that fateful day of our meeting, Anne was malnourished, addicted to drugs, and overwhelmed by her circumstances. I wondered how her life would have been different had someone rescued her when she was nine. Something in me was birthed and in 2016, together with like-minded friends, we formed Ubani Trust.

 

Ubani is the Swahili word for incense. In the Old Testament, incense was offered to God after the animal sacrifices to rid the altar of the foul smell. We pray that our beneficiaries will be, as incense, an aroma of life and hope to those in their communities. Our goal is to restore hope and a sense of dignity to the girls and community as a whole as we share Christ’s love. We help them to deal with issues of poverty, hopelessness, and child sexual exploitation.

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Anne represents many girls living in informal settlements. Out of 5 million inhabitants in Nairobi, 60% live in informal settlements. Of these, 15% are girls aged between nine and 19. Due to poverty, most of these girls never complete their education. Many more are coerced by their families to become sex commercial workers.

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We work with girls aged between 14 to 20 because this age group is at a higher risk of sexual exploitation and prostitution. We not only find opportunities for formal and informal education but also provide spiritual, and psychosocial support. Furthermore, we enable them to acquire sustainable livelihoods to keep them off prostitution.

 

Ubani Trust is a member of the International Christian Alliance on Prostitution (ICAP) Africa Region. Our passion runs deep and is backed by years of experience working with women in prostitution. Our mandate as a Christian charitable organization is to be salt and light to the least of these. Want to partner with us? Contact us to see how we can work together. Every little bit of help is needed and appreciated.