Debborah Odenyi
Headmistress, Shofco Kibera School For Girls
Bold Idea: Support teachers to iterate and strengthen a ground-breaking model for developing young female leaders in Kenya’s informal settlements, through a free school linked to health services and a grassroots community movement for gender equality.
Path to Metis: Debborah has over 25 years of experience teaching and supporting teachers to deliver a high quality education tailored to the needs of individual students. She believes that the role of education is to equip all learners with a strong sense of self-worth, no matter their background. Debborah grew up in Western Kenya with a mother who was a teacher. She began her career teaching at Eregi Girls Boarding Primary School, and developed an expertise supporting students with special needs and disabilities at Likuyani Primary School and Daisy Needs Special School.
She shifted to train emerging teachers as a tutor at Sir Humphrey International ECD Education College and then as a year three lead teacher at Oshwal Academy, where she managed 20 teachers. She is now the Kenyan lead teacher of the Girls on Fire leadership program, which uses a service learning model to develop female leaders, and she launched a service learning partnership between SHOFCO and Oshwal. Debborah has also written and directed plays at the Kenya National Drama Festival. At SHOFCO, Debborah leads a staff of 51 to deliver a pioneering teaching and learning model that delivers a high quality, innovative education to marginalized girls.
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