History of WIKS

The founder of WIKS, the Reverend Evalyn Wakhusama, a native of the Mumias Region of Western Kenya, spent three years in the United States at the Berkley College of the Yale Divinity School where she obtained Masters degrees in Divinity and Sacred Music. She returned to Kenya in 2002, determined to improve the lives of the disempowered in her country. To do this, she created the Women’s Initiative for Knowledge and Survival, “WIKS,” a Kenyan charitable organization. Evalyn recognized that the dehumanizing nature of poverty is caused by a diverse set of power relationships that deny life skills, education and other resources to a large segment of the Kenyan population, most notably, poor women and children orphaned by AIDS.

WIKS’s members and supporters question the rationale that creates this seemingly endless cycle of poverty that plagues sub-Saharan Africa. They see the possibility of reversing this hopeless situation by creating live-affirming and self-reliant communities. Their mission is to bring about change in the lives of an underserved population of children through education.

The WIKS philosophical approach stems from an analogy to water. Water is the essential component of life. In western Kenya girls traditionally go to the river to fetch water for their entire family and return home carrying it on their heads. WIKS members envision themselves as bearers of water for these communities. The water they carry, however, is not ordinary water; it is the water of knowledge and survival, which empowers women and children and improves their lives.

Evalyn is currently the Vicar of St. John’s of KARI, an Anglican mission on the outskirts of Nairobi. She is married to Dr. Samuel Wakhusama, a veterinarian and botanist. Aside from their countless volunteer efforts, they are also engaged in raising four of their own children, Wendy, Ernest, Patricia and Philip.

Dr. Samuel Wakhusama and
Rev. Evalyn Wakhusama