Brooke Abuya (MSW '14)

Nairobi, Kenya 

Passionate about the need of vulnerable families and children, Brooke has worked as both a caseworker at the Church World Service (CWS) Africa conducting refugee prescreening for Sub-Saharan African applicants who desire United States resettlement and as a Social Worker in the adoption department at the Child Welfare Society of Kenya. These experiences in both child welfare and refugee resettlement have informed his perspective of how communities can better serve families and children.  

In his work in child welfare, Brooke found that Kenyans’ natural connections and communal networks were far stronger in providing for the needs of children than more structured or formal avenues for crisis support and foster placement. He found that if a child were abandoned or recently orphaned, it was churches and neighbors who stepped in to provide for the child by collecting materials, providing housing, and, for some, even informally adopting the child as one of their own. Brooke noted this as a great strength of African communities, one that should be modeled, and dreamt of bringing together aspects of traditional Kenyan communal culture and modern technology.   

In Swahili, Jijimoja translates to “one city,” an idea proposed by Brooke that would bring together communities across Kenya to support children in crisis through an app or online platform. Understanding that the local church serves as a community pillar when a child or family is in crisis, Brooke began dreaming that this app that could allow churches, social workers, helping agencies, and willing volunteers to network and respond on behalf of a child in crisis.  

Brooke and Jijimoja both serve to reinforce the idea that local practitioners are better able to identify opportunities to leverage the community and cultural strengths and for how technology, from the right practitioner, can be applied to mobilize around a single cause.