{"id":16671,"date":"2026-07-20T15:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/?p=16671"},"modified":"2026-07-20T15:47:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:47:22","slug":"noeli-lilian-koskei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/noeli-lilian-koskei\/","title":{"rendered":"Noeli Lilian Koskei"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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LILIAN NOELI KOSKEI<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t
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Noeli Lilian Koskei is a grassroots advocate, survivor advocate, and founder of Sauti Dada Africa Foundation. She is affiliated with Africa Women Voices for Peace, YALI, and the Indigenous Women Council. Born and raised in the Pokot community in Tiaty, Baringo County, Noeli has dedicated her life to ensuring that indigenous girls grow up safe, stay in school, and have the freedom to choose their own future. <\/span><\/p>

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At the age of twelve, Noeli ran away from home and sought refuge in an FGM protection centre after being exposed to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). That experience changed the course of her life. Having watched many of her classmates leave school for marriage between the ages of twelve and fifteen, and even witnessing a young girl bleed to death after undergoing FGM, she knew she could not remain silent. Within her own family, she also faced pressure to leave school and get married because many believed educating a girl was a waste. Her mother’s experience of surviving childbirth complications after becoming pregnant at a young age further strengthened her resolve to protect girls from the same cycle.<\/span><\/p>

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These experiences inspired Noeli to establish Sauti Dada Africa Foundation, a grassroots organisation working in some of the most remote and volatile parts of Baringo and West Pokot. Through the organisation, she promotes girls’ education, menstrual health, prevention of child marriage and gender-based violence, while advocating for the rights and dignity of indigenous girls and women. <\/span>Noeli is an experienced mentor and trainer in life skills education and coordinates Alternative Rites of Passage as a culturally sensitive approach to ending FGM. She also leads rescue missions for girls at risk, conducts mentorship programmes, facilitates community dialogues, and uses storytelling, vernacular radio, film, and communication campaigns to reach communities that are often left behind. As a frontline peace champion working in an area affected by banditry and insecurity, she also engages young people in mediation, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding through sports and dialogue.<\/span><\/p>

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Her work has reached approximately 3,000 people in her community. She has trained nearly 1,500 girls through Alternative Rites of Passage, mentored more than 3,000 students on life skills, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and mental health and psychosocial support. She has also rescued 48 girls from FGM and child marriage and supported them to return to school, including enrolment at Chemolingot Primary School.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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What makes Noeli’s approach different is her commitment to supporting both primary and secondary survivors of FGM and child marriage through mental health and psychosocial support. She believes healing is just as important as prevention. Alongside advocacy and rescue, she creates spaces where survivors can process their experiences, rebuild their confidence, and find hope again.<\/span><\/p>

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Honesty, accountability, integrity, and compassion guide everything she does. To Noeli, sisterhood means <\/span>“a sister in my shoe with a tool for my survival and success.”<\/i><\/strong> She believes women become stronger when they heal together, learn from one another, and stand together in protecting the next generation.<\/span><\/p>

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She sees the Sister to Sister Initiative as a safe space where frontline women human rights defenders can share experiences, heal, learn, and remind one another that they are not alone. She values the initiative’s commitment to recognising women’s leadership, supporting protection efforts, and prioritising the mental well-being of women working on the frontlines.<\/span><\/p>

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Speaking about her community, Noeli describes the Pokot people as deeply rooted in culture, family, resilience, and respect for elders. While practices such as FGM, child marriage, and unequal access to education have harmed many girls, she believes these do not define her community. She has seen attitudes begin to change, proving that culture can evolve while preserving identity and dignity.<\/span><\/p>

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Looking ahead, Noeli dreams of building a safe centre for indigenous Pokot girls where they can find protection, education, mentorship, and every opportunity to realise their full potential. She also hopes to see families fully embrace girls’ rights to education, protection, and the freedom to make their own choices.<\/span><\/p>

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To leaders and the global community, her message is simple but urgent:<\/span><\/p>

“Please, listen to the voices of survivors. Let them reinvent ways to protect the next generation.”<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\tI raise up my voice, not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNOELI LILIAN <\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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LILIAN NOELI KOSKEI Noeli Lilian Koskei is a grassroots advocate, survivor advocate, and founder of Sauti Dada Africa Foundation. She is affiliated with Africa Women Voices for Peace, YALI, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":16672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-s2sprofiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/noeli.png?fit=960%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16671"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16689,"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671\/revisions\/16689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awra-group.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}