Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum

Kennedy Odede · Jessica Posner

Oct 2015 · HarperCollins

About this ebook

The New York Times–bestselling, inspiring true story of how one couple’s love changed a community.

Growing up homeless in Kibera, a slum in Kenya, Kennedy Odede received a book of Martin Luther King’s speeches that changed his life and inspired him to start Shining Hope for Communities, a local youth group. Several years later, irrepressible Wesleyan student Jessica Posner traveled to Kenya to work with SHOFCO. Soon, she and Kennedy fell in love. After returning to Wesleyan, Jessica discovered that Kennedy was threatened by political violence. She helped him escape by convincing Wesleyan’s admissions committee to offer him a full scholarship.

Once they’d finished college, Kennedy and Jessica returned to Kibera to found a school for hundreds of its most vulnerable residents: girls. They later opened a sister school in another slum, Mathare. With help from the community and donors around the world, they also provide water, health care, and entrepreneurial programs to tens of thousands in both places, and are determined to improve the lives of countless more.

Tender and inspiring, Find Me Unafraid vividly illustrates the power we all have to impact the world, and stands as a testament to the transformations made possible by true love.

Praise for Find Me Unafraid

“This book offers the greatest of all gifts—hope.” —Gloria Steinem

“An extraordinary book.” —Chelsea Clinton

“Suspenseful and absorbing, this true story of a man and woman from two different worlds reveals how dramatically circumstances can change.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Ratings and reviews

Kennedy a boy who had so much hurt in his life takes on surviving in a hopeless Kenyan slum. He has a tenacity and heart for his family, friends and others in an area called Kiberia. He starts an organization called shining hope for communities. A college student from Wesleyan university comes to Kiberia and they find a common goal of empowering and improving the lives of those in Kiberia.

The inspirational, heart-breaking stories that pour out of this book will have you believing that through dedication and a driving hunger to be more to the world than to yourself is encouraging beyond expression. I am incredibly happy to have stumbled upon this book by sheer chance and I look forward to the day that I am able to open an International School for Midwifery and safe-house for women world-wide. I knew there was a way to create an educational currency with a grassroots streak of influence and dignity without simultantaneously creating dependancy or further crippling the economy and your shared ideas in this book will help to fuel the foundation of an independent and one day, flourishing tuition-free midwifery school and safe-zone!

This is an amazing recount of world changers present day. It's amazing proof of what can be accomplished through continued perseverance, belief in more, and dedication to one's own values can translate to positive change that will be visible for generations to come.

About the author

Kennedy Odede is one of Africa's best-known community organizers and social entrepreneurs. Kennedy is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and a trustee of Wesleyan University.