Annual Report 2025
Six years of work, measured honestly. Programmes across five sub-counties of Kisumu, audited financials, governance, and the road into 2026.
When ARI began in 2020, three of us were sharing data bundles to run a WhatsApp group for adolescent girls in Kisumu Central. Five years later, we work in five of Kisumu's seven sub-counties, with a small staff team, forty-one trained volunteers, an independent governance committee, audited financials, three published working documents this year alone, and, for the second consecutive year, a formal seat at the county budget table.
This report tries to be honest about all of it: the programmes that worked, the programmes that did not, the cases where we got there in time and the ones where we did not, and the financial reality underneath it all. Section 13, "What we got wrong", is the section we found hardest to write. It is also the section we most wanted to publish.
We owe accuracy to the girls and young women who walk into our sessions, our rapid-response phone calls and our school partnerships. We owe accuracy to our donors, our governance committee, our county counterparts and the public. The numbers in this report are ours. Where they are estimates, we say so.
- The Afya Rights Initiative team
Executive summary
The year in numbers
| Programme area | Direct reach | Sessions / contacts | Sub-counties | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SRHR information & peer education | 2360 | 812 sessions | Kisumu Central, East, West, Nyando, Seme | 94 school-linked sessions |
| GBV response & accompaniment | 312 | 684 contacts | All five sub-counties | 78 rapid-response cases |
| Girls' education & retention | 1188 | 14 schools | Nyando + Kisumu West + Seme | Cohort base for ARI-RS-2025-04 |
| Policy & advocacy | - | 21 forums attended; 4 written submissions | County-wide | ARI-PB-2025-03 cited in committee report |
| Total direct reach (de-duplicated) | 4210 | - | - | Indicative; some overlap |
The context we work in
The structural headwinds we documented in 2024 did not ease in 2025. National health allocation remained around 9–10% of the national budget, short of the Abuja target by roughly half. Donor structural support to county-level adolescent SRHR continued to migrate. KDHS 2022 remains the most recent authoritative population data[1] and continues to place Nyanza highest of any region for adolescent childbearing.
What changed was the policy hearing. The Kisumu County Fiscal Strategy Paper for FY 2025/26[2] made adolescent SRHR explicit for the first time at strategy level. Our county SRHR financing brief[3] was cited in the County Assembly Health Committee's report on the FY 2025/26 estimates. This is not a victory in service delivery, it is the precondition for one.
SRHR programme
GBV response & accompaniment
GBV response volumes nearly doubled in 2025 against 2024, driven by greater visibility of the rapid-response phone line and by a structured referral relationship now in place at five Level 4 facilities. The 2025 GBV Response Capacity Assessment[4] documents the system-side context for this work; the case-by-case effort is summarised below.
| Activity | Volume | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rapid-response cases handled | 78 | Sexual violence within the 72-hour PEP window |
| Survivors accompanied to a facility | 71 | All to Level 4 facilities |
| Survivors initiated on PEP within 72 hours | 64 | 9 of 14 missed initiations linked to facility-side stockouts |
| Survivors with day-14 PEP follow-up | 52 | Adherence support remains the strongest predictor of completion |
| Psychosocial first-aid contacts (broader) | 684 | |
| Community awareness sessions | 38 |
The script changes when you have done it twenty times. You stop offering reassurance you cannot guarantee. You start asking the next question before the survivor has had to think of it. That is what training is for. It is not a soft skill.
Girls' education & retention
Our education-retention partnership grew from 9 to 14 schools in 2025, with the addition of three schools in Seme and two in Nyando. The 2025 Girls' Retention Study[5]reports the cohort findings. The headline operational fact is that the four "protective signals" identified in that study, a girls' club, a reliable MHM supply, a named re-entry navigator, and a safe-journey practice, are now standing operational targets in the partnership MoU.
Policy & advocacy
| Forum / process | Engagement | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Kisumu County FY 2025/26 pre-budget consultations | Written memorandum + oral submission | Adolescent SRHR ring-fence flagged in CFSP and Health Committee report |
| County Assembly Health Committee, FY 2025/26 estimates | Oral submission, written brief | ARI-PB-2025-03 cited in committee report |
| County Health Stakeholders Forum | Standing member | Joint communiqué co-signed each quarter |
| GBV Working Group (county) | Active member | Co-led drafting of stockout reporting language |
| Sub-County Education re-entry roundtables (Nyando + Seme) | Convening partner | Joint head-teachers protocol formally agreed |
| KICD adolescent life-skills review | Submission of written input | Acknowledged in revision tracking |
| National PBO/CSO budget briefings | Active observer | Built relationships with PBO secretariat |
Voices from the work
Atieno, 14
- Situation
- Atieno was brought to a sub-county facility by an aunt after a sexual assault. The on-call clinical officer had no GBV-specific training; the facility had no paediatric-sized PEP regimen on the shelf.
- ARI response
- ARI arranged transport at 21:30 to a partner facility where PEP was initiated at 23:50, at hour 28 of the incident. Forensic samples were preserved.
- Outcome
- Atieno completed PEP and a 12-session child-survivor counselling pathway with a partner organisation. School re-entry was supported via a joint visit by ARI and the head teacher.
Composite case study, anonymised. Names, ages and identifying details have been changed to protect the individuals concerned.
Ruth, 14
- Situation
- Ruth's father died at the end of 2023; her mother began long daily shifts at a sugar-cane processing site. Ruth assumed sibling care. By Term 2 of 2024 she was attending school two days per week.
- ARI response
- The class teacher referred Ruth to ARI's community partner. A small monthly stipend (KES 1,800) supported a neighbour to take on sibling care during school hours; the school's Tuseme club paired Ruth with a peer for catch-up.
- Outcome
- Ruth re-entered full-time attendance in Term 3 of 2024 and completed the year. She is currently enrolled in Form 1. The stipend has been transitioned to a community save-and-loan group.
Composite case study, anonymised. Names, ages and identifying details have been changed to protect the individuals concerned.
Financial accountability
ARI's 2025 financial year runs 1 January to 31 December. Figures below are management accounts at the time of publication; audited figures will be re-published when the independent review concludes in Q1 2026. ARI's first independent financial review (for FY 2024) returned an unqualified opinion in May 2025; the summary is at Annex C. All figures in KES.
Safeguarding & ethics
ARI adopted version 2 of its safeguarding policy in March 2025 (republished as ARI-POL-2025-01[6]). Across the year we recorded seven formal safeguarding concerns relating to ARI activities. All seven were investigated under the policy. Six were closed with documented outcomes; one remains open at the time of publication.
| Type | Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Boundary concern (volunteer–participant interaction) | 3 | All closed; 2 with refresher training, 1 with reassignment |
| Confidentiality concern (case discussion) | 2 | Both closed; written reminders + protocol update |
| Process concern (delayed referral) | 1 | Closed; rapid-response phone tree updated |
| External-facing concern (third-party conduct toward ARI staff) | 1 | Open; co-handled with partner organisation |
Governance
The governance committee met four times in 2025 (March, June, September, December) and the audit sub-committee met twice (May, October). Minutes are available on request, redacted for personal data. Composition is documented in the 2024 annual report[7]; no rotations occurred in 2025.
People & culture
We continue to be a young-led organisation. The median age of paid staff at year-end was 28; of volunteers, 24. Staff salaries were lifted in Q2 2025 to align with comparable Kenyan civil society scales for the same competencies, the commitment we made in the 2024 annual report.
What we got wrong
Three honest learning notes from the year.
We mis-scoped the Seme expansion
We entered Seme in Q2 with a programme model lifted directly from Kisumu West, on the assumption that the operational lessons would transfer. They did not. We spent Q3 partly re-doing groundwork, community entry, school onboarding, peer educator recruitment, that we could have done in Q1 with closer listening. Reach numbers in Seme are below the original plan. The 2026 expansion into Nyakach will front-load community entry as a discrete phase.
The unrestricted runway gap is on us, not on donors
We ended Q3 with 4.5 months of unrestricted runway against a 6-month target. Two of our restricted programme grants arrived later than budgeted; the broader cause was that we spent the first half of the year on programme delivery and documentation rather than on individual-giving cultivation. That is a choice we made; the consequence is ours.
Our M&E lagged programme growth
Our monitoring system was designed for 2024 reach volumes. At 2025 volumes, several indicators (linkage to service, day-14 follow-up) were under-reported because the data collection was the same and the field teams were stretched. We have under-counted ourselves in places. Investment in M&E is the first 2026 commitment in Section 14.
The year ahead (2026)
- Invest in M&E: a redesigned data system, two additional M&E posts, and quarterly data quality reviews.
- Stand up programme presence in Nyakach, taking ARI's footprint to six of seven sub-counties.
- Co-publish a Kisumu County adolescent SRHR scorecard with the Department of Health (per the proposal in ARI-PB-2025-03[3]).
- Achieve the 6-month unrestricted runway target by mid-year.
- Convene the standing adolescent advisory group with rotating seats from across all sub-counties of operation.
- Publish two new working documents: a study of mental health among out-of-school adolescents in Kisumu, and a brief on the school transport question raised in ARI-RS-2025-04[5].
Programme indicators (2025)
The 2025 indicator set is the 2024 set (see ARI-AR-2024[7]) with three additions made in response to the Section 13 learning notes: two new linkage indicators (SRHR linkage to service within 7 days; GBV day-14 PEP follow-up reconciled with facility note) and one new M&E quality indicator (data quality review completion).
Donor list and restrictions (2025)
| Donor (category) | Restriction | Indicative share of income | Programme alignment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bilateral health programme partner (county) | Restricted | ≈26% | GBV response, PRC kit buffer |
| International foundation (girls' education focus) | Restricted | ≈21% | Girls' retention, MHM |
| Regional civil society fund | Unrestricted | ≈12% | Core operations |
| European-based child rights foundation | Restricted | ≈11% | Safeguarding capacity, advisory group |
| Faith-linked grant maker | Restricted | ≈8% | SRHR peer education |
| Earned income (training, consultancy) | Unrestricted | ≈10% | Cross-cutting |
| Individual giving (aggregated) | Unrestricted | ≈8% | Cross-cutting |
| Other small grants and in-kind | Mixed | ≈4% | Cross-cutting |
Independent financial review summary (FY 2024)
The 2024 financial year was reviewed by an independent chartered accountancy firm registered with ICPAK, in line with the Public Finance Management Act, 2012[8] as it applies to non-state actors. The review returned an unqualified opinion, with three management letter observations, all of which have been actioned. The full review is available on request. The 2025 review is scheduled for Q1 2026 and the findings will be re-published in the 2026 annual report.
Glossary
- ARI
- Afya Rights Initiative.
- ASRH
- Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health.
- CBO
- Community-Based Organisation.
- CFSP
- County Fiscal Strategy Paper.
- CIDP
- County Integrated Development Plan.
- GBV
- Gender-Based Violence.
- ICPAK
- Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya.
- KICD
- Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development.
- M&E
- Monitoring and Evaluation.
- MHM
- Menstrual Hygiene Management.
- MoE
- Ministry of Education.
- MoU
- Memorandum of Understanding.
- PBO
- Parliamentary Budget Office.
- PEP
- Post-Exposure Prophylaxis.
- PRC
- Post-Rape Care.
- Tuseme
- Swahili 'let us speak', a girls'-club methodology pioneered by FAWE.
ARI thanks the adolescents and young women whose engagement with our work is its only justification. We thank our peer educators, volunteers, and staff. We thank our independent governance committee for refusing to let us round corners. We thank our institutional donors, our individual donors, and the partner organisations we work alongside. We thank the head teachers, facility in-charges, ward administrators, county officials, and journalists whose work makes our work possible. The responsibility for any errors in this report is ours alone.
Bibliography
- [1]Kenya National Bureau of Statistics et al. (2023). Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022. KNBS and ICF.
- [2]County Government of Kisumu (2025). County Fiscal Strategy Paper for FY 2025/26. County Treasury, Kisumu.
- [3]Afya Rights Initiative (2025). County SRHR Financing Brief 2025 (ARI-PB-2025-03). Kisumu.
- [4]Afya Rights Initiative (2025). GBV Response Capacity in Kisumu Level 4 Facilities (ARI-CA-2025-02). Kisumu.
- [5]Afya Rights Initiative (2025). Girls' Retention Study, Nyando 2025 (ARI-RS-2025-04). Kisumu.
- [6]Afya Rights Initiative (2025). Safeguarding Policy 2025 (ARI-POL-2025-01). Kisumu.
- [7]Afya Rights Initiative (2024). Annual Report 2024 (ARI-AR-2024). Kisumu.
- [8]Republic of Kenya (2012). Public Finance Management Act, 2012. Nairobi.
- [9]County Government of Kisumu (2023). Kisumu County Integrated Development Plan III, 2023–2027.
- [10]Ministry of Health, Kenya (2015). National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy. Nairobi.
- [11]Ministry of Health, Kenya (2014, revised 2023). National Guidelines on Management of Sexual Violence in Kenya, 4th edition. Nairobi: MoH.
- [12]Ministry of Education, Kenya (2020). National Guidelines for School Re-entry in Early Learning and Basic Education. Nairobi.
- [13]Office of the Controller of Budget, Kenya (2024). Annual County Governments Budget Implementation Review Report, FY 2023/24. Nairobi.
- [14]Republic of Kenya (2019). Data Protection Act, 2019. Nairobi.
- [15]Republic of Kenya (2022). The Children Act, 2022. Nairobi.
- [16]UNICEF (2020). Child Safeguarding Policy and Standards. New York: UNICEF.
- [17]Bond UK (2023). Safeguarding standards for international development organisations. London: Bond.
- [18]PMA Kenya (2023). PMA2022/Kenya Phase 3: Family Planning Brief.
- [19]Ford, N., Mayer, K. H., et al. (2014). Adherence to HIV postexposure prophylaxis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. AIDS, 28(18), 2721–2727.
- [20]Brookings Institution (2022). What Works in Girls' Education. Washington, DC.
Afya Rights Initiative (ARI) is a youth-led community organisation based in Kisumu, Kenya, working at the intersection of sexual and reproductive health rights, gender-based violence response, and adolescent education. We accompany girls, young women and key populations across Kisumu County and push for county-level policy and budget changes that make their rights real.
- Contact
- hello@afyarightsinitiative.or.ke+254 717 558 070Kisumu, Kenya
- Document
- ARI-AR-2025v1.0November 2025
- Registration
- Community-based organisation registration with the State Department for Social Protection, Kenya.
- License
- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Afya Rights Initiative (2025). Annual Report 2025. Kisumu, Kenya. ARI-AR-2025. Released under CC BY-NC 4.0.