“Still, I Rise” is a collection of first-person essays by 28 teenage mothers in Kenya. In 2025, Kenya recorded more than 235,000 teenage pregnancies. Young single mothers are often forced to leave schools and their families due to overwhelming stigma.
In this collection, published by the non-profit CFK Africa, the young women get to tell their own stories.
Here & Now‘s Lisa Mullins speaks with the two co-editors of the collection, Charlotte Barcott, a high school student from North Carolina, and Siama Yusuf, a senior program officer for girls empowerment at CFK, who lives in Kenya.
Book excerpt: ‘Still, I Rise’
Edited by Charlotte Barcott and Siama Yusuf
Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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