Peninah Musyimi

In 2014 she delivered a TEDx talk about her story titled "I am the Change" in Amsterdam. As of February 2022, it has been viewed 10,000 times. In 2019 she was invited to Amsterdam where she spoke about emancipation at the opening of a symposium. She spoke at the Cobra Museum in aid of International Women's Day.

In 2011 she was given that year's "I am Powerful" award by CARE on the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. She went to Washington to receive the award.

After graduation Musyimi trained as a lawyer, but recognised there was further activism that she could undertake. In 2008 she established "Safe Spaces" with funds from Schools without Borders and the Dutch embassy. The aim of the organisation is to increase the confidence and opportunities for girls in Nairobi. The project encourages girls to have ambitions and supplies funding to support secondary and university education. It also teaches girls how to be mechanics. It began with an initial meeting in her home with a small group of teenagers, where they discussed how women were "treated like trash".

Peninah Nthenya Musyimi (born December 1978) is a Kenyan lawyer activist, who established the 'Safe Spaces' project, to empower young women who were growing up in the slums of Nairobi. The project draws on her own life experience as the first person from her neighbourhood in the Mathare Valley to graduate from university. In 2011 she was the recipient of Care International's "I am Powerful" award.

Musyimi was born in December 1978 in the area of Nairobi known as Mathare Valley. Her family were poor and lived in a house without a toilet, so she worked for her neighbours for cash payment. Drink, drugs and prostitution are common sights in Mathare Valley, which affect the ability of young people from there to access education.