Apply: Rise Up Launches Leadership & Advocacy Program in Kenya

PHI’s Rise Up will select a group of 25 local civil society leaders from Kenya to participate in their Leadership and Advocacy Accelerator training program to advance gender equity and justice in girls’ education July 14-19, 2025.

Visionary leaders (18 years of age at the time of the training – July 2025) that are based in Nairobi, Kiambu, Kajiado or Machakos Counties are eligible to apply. Through Rise Up’s program, these local leaders will advance transformational change in their organizations and communities, and champion improved national and local laws, programs, and funding for women, girls, and gender-nonconforming people.

Rise Up will competitively award grants of $17,000 USD to participating leaders and their organizations and encourage those working on advancing girls’ education to apply.

Application Deadline: April 14, 2025

Virtual Orientation: June 30, 2025
Leadership and Advocacy Accelerator: July 14-19, 2025, in-person, in Nairobi

Rise Up has developed an innovative hybrid—virtual and in-person—model that integrates intensive capacity building, leadership development, project funding, and technical support to ensure the leaders can launch advocacy strategies to advance education for women, girls, and gender-nonconforming people in Kenya.

Core strategies include:

• Leadership and Advocacy Accelerator: Following a rigorous selection process, Rise Up Leaders will participate in a week-long Leadership and Advocacy Accelerator training between July 14–19, 2025. During this intensive training, participants learn how to strengthen the following skills: leadership, team building, resilience, goal setting, strategic planning, messaging, political mapping, policy change, proposal and budget development, and more to improve the lives of women, girls, and gender-nonconforming people in their communities by expanding access to education for girls in Kenya.
• Invest in Local Solutions: Following the Accelerator, Rise Up Leaders have the opportunity to apply for competitive seed funding to launch their strategies to advance gender equity in education.
• Build Movements with Women, Girls, and Allies: Rise Up helps leaders foster relationships with peers, funders, decision-makers, and partner organizations. Expanding their networks with partners and funders is essential for Rise Up Leaders’ ability to grow and create change—and is integral for the movement we are building together. Rise Up also provides access to speaking opportunities, conferences, funders, grants, and ongoing coaching to amplify leaders’ voices. The newly selected leaders in Kenya will also become part of Rise Up’s alumni network, a global movement of leaders in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the U.S

For more information, please contact Kenya’s Country Representative Naomi Monda at KenyaRep@riseuptogether.org.

Rise Up builds power with women, girls, and their allies by providing training, funding, and connection to a global network to help them achieve meaningful, lasting change. Since 2009, Rise Up’s powerful network of over 800 leaders has successfully advocated for 218 new and improved laws and policies, positively impacting more than 172 million people around the world.