OUR PEOPLE

Haki na Sheria is organized to ensure that the organization has effective oversight, good management and a strong service delivery team. 

HSI has 5 board members and it is responsible for making key strategic decisions, which inform the operations of the organization. 

The Executive Director oversees the activities of the organization and provides overall leadership. He is assisted by four program officers administering various programs and a finance and administration officer. HSI also employs five part-time paralegals who work in the field to assist the population of Northern Kenya obtain birth certificates and government documents.

BOARD

Keren Weitzberg

Keren Weitzberg is a researcher and Historian-ethnographer with 10+ years of experience in Kenya. She is based at the Institute of Advanced Studies at University College London. Working at the intersection of science and Technology studies (STS) and Migration studies, Keren examines problems related to mobility, digital identity, and Biometrics.
Her first book, ‘WE DO NOT HAVE BORDERS’: Greater Somalia and the Predicaments of belonging in Kenya, looked at Somali Transnational networks in Kenya. Keren’s new project explores the history of Biometric Identification in East Africa. It examines how those at the physical and metaphorical margins of the Nation are navigating new digital identity systems. Her recent work has been funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust, the American council of Learned Societies, the FulBright Program, the British Institute in East Africa, Privacy International, the Alan Turing Institute, and the UCL Trellis: Public Art Programme. She has extensive experience collaborating with non-profits, civil society groups, artists, and practitioners across the US, UK,Continental Europe, and Eastern and Southern Africa.

Daud Hassan Mayow

Daud Hassan is a finance expert with close to 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector. He has worked in both Kenya and Somalia for both local and international organisations. He is a trained accountant with a CPA (k) and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Kenya Methodist University. Daud is currently pursuing his MBA at the Kenyatta University. 
He is currently working with USAID-Kenya –Afya Jijini programme as a Senior Finance Officer.

TEAM

Yussuf Bashir

Executive Director

Yussuf Bashir is the Executive Director and a founder of the organization. He is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya with extensive experience in successfully litigation public interest litigations cases, including Huduma Namba case where he served as a lead counsel for the Nubian community. Yussuf has spent his career working with various local and international ngos fighting to end discrimination and various human rights violations of minorities and marginalized communities in Kenya. Yussuf has a masters degree in law from Queen Mary University of London and is a graduate of University of Nairobi and Kenya School of Law. He is also a previous recipient of the Chevening Scholarship.

Abdinasir Mohamud

Head of Paralegals

Abdinasir manages the team of seven paralegals. In his role he provides the guidance on community empowerment, training of the paralegals and documentation of human rights violations. Abdinasir has been with Haki na Sheria since 2017 when he started as a paralegal and quickly progressed to become the leader of the team. He is a graduate of Shurie Secondary School where he obtained a certificate of secondary school.

Doreen Nkonge

Finance and Administrative Officer

Doreen is the Finance Officer at Haki na Sheria Initiative. She works closely with program donors, partners, and officers for efficient and effective implementations of HSI program projects. Prior to HSI, Doreen worked at Lukenya Hills Limited and Ray of Hope Foundation.She is passionate about women’s rights and helping marginalized communities to exercise their rights. She has a bachelor degree in Commerce-Finance and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Khasida Abdul

Program Officer,
Citizenship and Statelessness Project

Khasida is a human rights activist who is passionate about advocating for the rights of children in Garissa. Prior to joining Haki na Sheria Initiative as a program officer in charge of Citizenship and Statelessness project, she volunteered as an untrained teacher at her former NEP girls high school during the mass exodus of teachers in Garissa following the Garissa University attack in 2015. She has also worked with a community based organization to mentor students and support girls child education. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and Communication from Laikipia University.

Habiba Fora

Program Officer,
Environmental Justice

Habiba is the program officer for Environmental Justice. She is a human and environmental rights defender, who is very passionate about the protection and conservation of the environment. She believes in equal rights for all. She previously worked at the Center for Justice Governance and Environmental Action, working to defend the rights of the Owino Uhuru community who was exposed to lead poisoning by a state licensed smelter. Habiba has a degree in Linguistics, Media and Communication. She is always learning and growing in her field of work as she aspires to be an environmental law expert.

Barre Kerow

Program Officer, Citizenship and Statelessness Project and Environmental Justice

As a program officer, Barre manages both the citizenship and environmental projects. In his role, he is responsible for connecting the community, relevant government officers and HSI staff and facilitating discussions and identifying solutions to address the needs of the community. He is a human rights defender with experience on the Kenya constitution on human rights advocacy. Barre started his career as a youth leader advocating for the rights of youth on acquisition of identification cards. He later joined Kenya Human Rights Commission to monitor elections and document enforced disappearance.

Abdimalik Ismail Hajir

Paralegal

Abdimalik Ismail Hajir is a journalist who previously worked with two leading newspapers in Kenya, Daily Nation and The Standard, covering stories from Northeastern Kenya. He joined Haki Na Sheria in 2019 as a paralegal and communication person managing HSI’s social media the website. He is a passionate human rights defender who pushes for accountability amongst duty bearers. He is a graduate of Mount Kenya University where he obtained a diploma in journalism and mass communication.

Somane Aden

Paralegal

Somane Aden has been with Haki na Sheria since 2017. As a paralegal he is proud to serve the community in Northern Kenya to ensure that the community is able to exercise its rights, and able to obtain birth certificates, identity documents and death certificates.

Mande Samba

Paralegal

Mande Samba has been a paralegal with Haki na Sheria since October 2017. Samba loves working with the communities in Northern Kenya especially assisting mothers and young women exercise their rights and obtain birth certificates and ids for themselves and their children. Samba has a bachelor’s degree in information science.

Luciah Mwikali

Paralegal

Luciah Mwikali Sila is a paralegal with Haki na Sheria helping communities to obtain government documents and bettering their lives. Since joining HSI, Luciah has gained immense knowledge on the services paralegals provide to the community and has enjoyed working in the field and meeting new people. She hopes to continue learning and obtain more knowledge on  counselling, documentation and record keeping. Lucia holds a diploma in community development and social work from North Eastern National Polytechnic.

Ali Hussein Shide

Paralegal

Luciah Mwikali Sila is a paralegal with Haki na Sheria helping communities to obtain government documents and bettering their lives. Since joining HSI, Luciah has gained immense knowledge on the services paralegals provide to the community and has enjoyed working in the field and meeting new people. She hopes to continue learning and obtain more knowledge on  counselling, documentation and record keeping. Lucia holds a diploma in community development and social work from North Eastern National Polytechnic.

Haki na Sheria Initiative (HSI) was established by young human rights defenders who, based on personal experience of discrimination, wanted to set up a platform for the Kenyan Somali community to learn about their rights and demand justice and equality.

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COMMUNITY

Haki na Sheria has been working with the communities in Northern Kenya, specifically in the Garissa county, to obtain citizenship documents and empower the communities to demand government services and accountability. Since 2014, HSI empowered 5,000 rural nomadic community members in Garissa on citizenship rights and organized communities to hold duty bearers to account and assisted these communities in obtaining citizenship documents. In 2019, HSI organized several mobile birth registrations resulting in the issuance of 300 birth certificates in Waberi and Bulla Madina.

The civil registration office in Garissa has faced massive back logs of applications and lack of equipment and man force to process these requests on time. HSI provided the office with a printer as well as embedded a paralegal full-time to assist the office, resulting in clearing up the backlog of the pending birth certificate applications. 

We have also been the only organization working on the issues of the double registrations and assisting in the vetting process. We assisted the vetting committee as well as the community in large to ensure a smooth and effective process. As a result, 7 communities in Northern Kenya have undergone the vetting process and many citizens have been deregistered from the UNHCR database and are able to obtain citizenship documents.

Climate change is a menace affecting the world at large. However, the severe impacts of climate change are felt by vulnerable communities, who depend on their environment for their livelihoods. The community in Garissa has been feeling the impacts of climate change with floods and droughts becoming more commonplace. Floods have led to the displacement of people creating a rise in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in the county. Droughts have forced the pastoralists communities to move further in search of pasture, with most of them losing a large number of their livestock.

PARTNERSHIPS

This contribution from our partners and donors to our work is extremely important to us and many of our projects would not be possible without this generous support. We would like to thank all contributors including: