WISER

Live. Learn. Be.

The Women’s Institute for Secondary Education and Research (WISER) is a non-profit NGO working to build the first girls’ boarding school and research center in Muhuru Bay, Kenya.

WISER is dedicated to maintaining a strong academic program for girls that fosters a spirit of inquiry, intellectual independence and enthusiasm for learning. Girls will be challenged to lead, serve, make decisions and reduce the gender equality gap in Kenyan society. We believe a girls’ boarding school is much more than a place where boys are absent. It’s the center of cultivating the next generation of leaders.

WISER strives to be a model for others, and will also create research and experiential learning opportunities for U.S. students interested in international health and development.

Our story

In 2002 Dr. Sherryl Broverman of Duke University and Dr. Rose Odhiambo of Egerton University (Kenya) began working together to develop the first required HIV/AIDS course at a university in Kenya. This course was for a general audience and emphasized the role gender plays in HIV transmission. In 2004 Dr. Odhiambo introduced Dr. Broverman to her home village of Muhuru Bay, a community heavily burdened with HIV infection and gender inequalities, and which became a second research site for Dr. Broverman and her students. In 2006, joined by Andy Cunningham, a community plan and partnership was formed start the WISER NGO.

Welcome to Muhuru Bay, Kenya.

WISER will call a small fishing village on the shore of Lake Victoria home. Muhuru Bay, located in the Nyanza province of Kenya near the Tanzanian border, and has the highest HIV and malaria infection rates in the country. The Nyanza province is the poorest in the country, and its political isolation has held back its progress. In this environment, girls are the ones who suffer the most. WISER is here to help.

We’ve laid the groundwork and we’re moving forward. With the first classes scheduled for enrollment in January 2010, WISER is taking shape rapidly.