ESTHER WAIKURU, Community Organizer
Profile
Esther Waikuru has over 5 years experience working as a social worker in Nairobi and Meru town. Esther has worked with the Government of Kenya prison’s service in creating legal awareness amongst the prison remandees and also lobbying for their human rights. She has also been involved in counseling and tracing remandees’ relatives. As a prison paralegal officer, she was the team leader of Lang’ata Women prisons and Meru prisons respectively.
She has a wealth of experience in the human rights movement as a theatre activist which involved mobilizing communities in addressing Women rights, children rights, and workers’ rights through plays.
While working for Maji na Ufanisi for the past one year, Esther has been involved in formation of several CBOs and implementation of Water and Environmental Sanitation services in the urban informal settlements of Nairobi. She assists in evaluating the effectiveness of these groups by tracking their performance accordance to community participation and involvement. She is self dedicated to the service of the disadvantaged.
Specialization
- Counseling
- Paralegal work
- Basic human rights
- Leadership development and knowledge of community and social systems
- Community assessment and Gender analysis
- Financial management training
- Awareness creation through theatre
- Skills-building in program planning and evaluation
- Conflict resolution and coalition building
Education
- 2003 Diploma in community Development- Institute of Community Development
- 1989-1992 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (Lang’ata High School)
Professional Training
- 2006 Course Gender Mainstreaming in Water and Sanitation programs – NETWAS
- 2005 Course Human rights for torture monitors – People against Torture
- 2001 Secretarial - Moi Avenue Secretarial College.
Languages
- English,
- Kiswahili,
- Dholuo,
- Kikuyu