Community does not have to mean your blood relatives; it can be the people who actively and intentionally choose to build healthy relationships with you. As the founder of Azadi, a Nairobi-based survivor collective, Sophie Otiende recognises the fundamental importance of using your community to transform, heal and ultimately achieve justice. Through her work at Azadi and her role as the Chief Executive Officer at the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS), Sophie has helped to rehabilitate hundreds of trafficking survivors. Her journey is one that was informed by her own experience as a survivor of trafficking. 

 

A Strong Foundation 

Growing up in Eastlands, Nairobi, Sophie was raised in a bubble of love that enveloped her and her four siblings. Her parents were intentional about their relationships with their children, making sure they properly addressed conflict, listened to, and trusted them. Later in life, Sophie would realise that her approach to relationships was because of the strong foundation of her upbringing. 

When Sophie was in primary school, her father lost his job. This caused a lifestyle shift within the family as they lost their economic stability. Despite everything, the foundation remained. Their parents protected them and still tried to ensure that they still had a good upbringing filled with laughter, political debates, and Rhumba. 

 

A Childhood Disrupted 

When Sophie was in Class 7, she was trafficked and abused by a relative whom her parents had entrusted to look out for her. This harrowing experience caused her to miss the entire school year. Still, she returned to school to complete her studies – a testament to the determination and self-belief that her parents had instilled in her. 

Being a bright child, Sophie excelled and was offered a full scholarship to Kenya High School, where she began her secondary education in 2000. During this time, she was actively dealing with trauma from what had happened to her. At the same time, her family was still navigating poverty, which meant that she had to manage her trauma without resources and social protection. This spurred her interest in activism, and she decided to study education at university as she felt that it would give her the proper foundation to navigate the advocacy space. 

 

Community-Centred Activism 

 Sophie’s approach to activism was to empower communities to organise themselves and build institutions that will protect them. Her work started in Kayole, one of the neighbourhoods in Eastlands, where she got involved with different projects, including setting up libraries and working with youth to increase civic engagement. 

While working within the trafficking space, specifically, Sophie realised that the system is focused on giving short-term rehabilitation services that capitalise on recovery. Drawing from her own experience, she recognised that it took her well over a decade to recover. She wanted to create alternative programming that actually thinks about the person rather than maintaining systems and processes, and, so, Azadi was born. 

Azadi provides a safe space for people to decompress and think about their trauma, not survival. They serve one meal a day and provide the opportunity for members to meet other survivors encouraging them to build community instead of isolating themselves. Azadi also trains its members in activism and provides wellbeing and educational services, including group and art therapy, research and photography fellowships and yoga. The survivors access everything for free, and the services are not limited to a time frame, meaning they can essentially access this treatment for a lifetime. Inclusivity is also at the core of Azadi’s work, as they work with people of all creeds and sexualities. Everyone comes as they are; they do not have to adapt their identities to receive care. 

 

Working to end slavery around the globe 

In 2022, Sophie was appointed the CEO of GFEMS, an organisation that advocates for governments globally to invest money into tackling trafficking and modern slavery. Her task was to recreate the fabric of the institution by changing it internally. Just like in high school, Sophie recognised that she had been given access to a space that people like her do not usually access. Going into the role, she was focused on making funding inclusive, and focused on the lived experiences of survivors. Under Sophie’s lead, GFEMS launched their new strategy on 25th January 2023 and has started doing the work to implement it. 

One of Sophie’s favourite quotes is by African American academic Saidiya Hartman. It reads: “So much of the work of oppression is about policing imagination”. Sophie puts this quote into action as she actively reimagines what support could look like for survivors, designs the solutions, and brings them to life.