Volunteering in Kenya with Kurunzi Fund

Written by Jennifer Milano, traveled July 2025

I met my friend, Sonia Biswas, the day I moved into my college freshman dorm. We both loved traveling, dancing to 80’s music (or as we called it back then, music), and studying all things international. Last year, Sonia told me she planned to do a volunteer trip to Kenya with Kurunzi Fund, an organization started by her former USAID colleague, and invited me to join her. After talking with Kurunzi Fund’s co-founders, Elizabeth and Kennedy, and learning about the organization’s work, I did not hesitate to sign up. I had been wanting to volunteer abroad for years, and was excited to have found a small organization that would not overcharge me for the privilege of feeling relatively useless as a volunteer - at least, I had read lots of reviews by volunteers who arrive at their destination and then don’t feel as though they have contributed much. Kurunzi Fund is an organization inspired by Kennedy’s dream of reducing child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). After he guided Elizabeth up Mt. Kenya, the two decided to pair up and create Kurunzi Fund to sponsor girls who had been victims of child marriage and FGM but who had escaped to Samburu Girls’ Foundation. Samburu Girls’ Foundation could house, feed, and partially educate the girls, but could not afford to send them to public boarding schools. Kurunzi Fund partners with Samburu Girls’ Foundation to sponsor some of these girls to attend boarding school. I had researched and wrote about FGM in my human rights law class, and have always championed girls’ education as their key to independence and freedom. I was hooked.

In addition to visiting the sponsored girls at their schools and spending time at Samburu Girls’ Foundation’s rescue center, our small group of five volunteers would spend four days at Suswa Primary School in the Great Rift Valley building a vegetable garden and teaching in classrooms. I packed my secret weapon for breaking the ice with children, bubbles, and headed off to Kenya in early July. Elizabeth had also planned for us to spend a day on safari in the Maasai Mara to view the wildebeest migration, as well as some other fun activities. I had not been to Kenya since I was 12 years old, but I had vivid memories of the trip as it had a lasting impact on me - both in terms of launching my obsession with travel and planting the seed to study human rights law.

Our trip fees funded the garden work and paid for our trip expenses, so our accommodations were not places I’d recommend for the average traveler. However, they served their purpose for the goal of our trip, which was to spend time with the children in Suswa, Samburu, and the girls’ high schools.