Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, And Hope In An African Slum

Born in the Midwest to a middle-class family, Jessica is outgoing and strong-willed. During her studies at Wesleyan University, she is constantly searching for more purpose in her life and work. When a friend recommends a study abroad program, she reaches out to Kennedy Odede, the founder of SHOFCO about working in his theater program. When she arrives in Kenya, she is determined to live in Kibera, the poorest slum, despite being shocked by a level of poverty and instability she has never witnessed before.

Jessica’s stubbornness turns out to be a great asset to SHOFCO. She ends up falling in love with the passionate and hardworking Kennedy and works to get him to America when his ethnic group is targeted by violence. The two work as a team at Wesleyan to raise funds and build a school for girls in Kibera. As they work together, the personal bond between them grows, and Jessica eventually accepts Kennedy’s proposal of marriage. Jessica develops her own personal relationship with the people of Kibera when she spends a year there without Kennedy. 

Known as Ajey, Kennedy’s mother is a strong-willed woman who fights for her dignity. When she becomes pregnant, she rejects the first of two arranged marriages she’ll turn down in her life. Despite her resistance to marriage, she ends up married to an alcoholic, abusive husband named Babi, who becomes Kennedy’s stepfather. While she appears to be stuck in the cycle of abuse and poverty of Kenyan slums, Ajey has a strength inside her that is unique to her situation.

Tired of living in hunger because her husband steals her money to drink, she forms a progressive women’s empowerment group at her church and appoints Kennedy their secretary because of his literacy skills. Much of what Kennedy learned about women rights and empowerment came from his mother: “When I was a child, the sense of joy and strength she drew from defying expectations, or standing up for what she believed in, no matter how many people she alienated, often made me afraid of her” (25). Ajey is a powerful woman who taught Kennedy to respect and support women, rather than abuse or control them.

Babi, Ajey’s husband and Kennedy’s stepfather, is an abusive alcoholic who often singles out Kennedy for abuse. In Kenyan culture, it is abnormal to have a stepfather. Children are more often abandoned than adopted. Kennedy tolerates the abuse of his stepfather throughout his childhood, not understanding why Babi gets angry whenever Kennedy eats food. When he is older, Kennedy finally learns that Babi is not is real father and understands why Babi seemed to target him.

Despite Babi being an alcoholic abusive father and husband, his family still stands by him. When Kennedy introduces Jessica to the family as his official girlfriend, Babi wants to have a formal dinner with them to ask her intentions, even though he hasn’t spoken with Kennedy in four years. Kennedy and Ajey choose to forgive Babi for his abuse, rather than to harbor resentment that Kennedy says only poisons oneself. 

Kennedy is the oldest in his family and spends much of his childhood trying to feed and shield his younger siblings, notably his sisters, from the violence and hunger that pervades their home. From childhood to adulthood, he continues to take care of his entire family. When his sister Jackie is raped and becomes pregnant, he openly weeps over the injustice in his community. This horrible act inspires his dream for the Kibera School for Girls as a place to provide a safe haven for other girls to avoid abuse. His sister Liz, who becomes a good friend of Jessica, also becomes pregnant in her teens. Kennedy feels responsible for this as he basically raised her and tried to get her to stay in boarding school and avoid early pregnancy that usually leads to marriage and poverty. 

George is Kennedy’s closest confident and helps manage SHOFCO. George consistently supports Kennedy’s efforts to affect change, even when they seemed nonrealistic for the conditions in Kibera. As Kennedy travels to America to study at Wesleyan and tries to run SHOFCO from abroad, George is his right-hand man on the ground, doing all he can to help it succeed. He is vital in the building of the Kibera School for Girls and proves himself to be a trustworthy friend to both Kennedy and Jessica.

Like George, Antony was a part of SHOFCO from its founding. He was a close friend to Kennedy who always seemed to look out for him. When Kennedy travels to Wesleyan University, Antony pillages the SHOFCO building, selling the five donated computers and most of the furniture. When Kennedy returns from America to build the school for girls in Kibera, Antony hires a man to hurt him. Antony’s unfaithfulness and betrayal wounds Kennedy, as he always viewed him as a close compatriot.