Josephine Kulea (left). Architects and designers (right) used traditional Samburu jewelry as inspiration while planning the new school campus for girls rescued from child marriage.
A member of the Samburu tribe of north-central Kenya, Josephine Kulea grew up in a culture that practices female genital mutilation (FGM), child marriage and “beading,” a ritual of non-consensual sex between young girls and older male relatives. Spared this fate because her mother defied tradition and insisted she stay in school, Kulea trained as a nurse and through her education came to realize that certain traditions were not practiced in other communities — and that they are harmful to children. She devoted her life to helping others, first rescuing two cousins from child marriage and later founding the nonprofit Samburu Girls Foundation, which has helped more than 1,000 girls since 2012.
Kenya outlawed FGM and child marriage in 2011, but cultural traditions are hard to break. Kulea spreads the word about her work on local radio stations and at community meetings where she educates people about the importance of child rights and education. The outreach is working — she gets phone calls and social media tips when there is an impending child marriage. Sometimes she coordinates with police to carry out the rescue, but the work is often dangerous. “We’ve been threatened with illegal guns,” Kulea tells Isthmus. “They wait for us at the weddings.”
After girls are rescued, the Samburu Girls Foundation provides counseling, health care and a supportive community at its rescue center, and Kulea helps them enroll in boarding schools throughout Kenya. But the operation is expensive — it costs $1,500 to support each girl. For years, Kulea has envisioned what she calls “the dream school” — a centralized campus where the rescued girls could live, learn and heal together while remaining connected to their families. “There’s so much more they need,” Kulea says. “Counseling, follow-ups and a lot of love.”
Today, Kulea’s dream school is being built thanks in part to an unlikely connection with a group of Madisonians. Lesley Sager, a faculty associate in UW-Madison’s School of Human Ecology, has been doing outreach in Kenya since 2012 and met Kulea last year after hearing about the Samburu Girls Foundation. Sager has brought her design students to Kenya in partnership with her nonprofit Merry-Go-Strong, which aims to help women and children become artisans.
“I saw an opportunity to collaborate,” Sager says of her partnership with Kulea. “This is something that’s not only helping the community, but it’s helping my students see that they can do things out in the world.”
Sager then connected with Michael Ford, co-founder of The Urban Arts Collective and a former Madison College professor of architectural technology who specializes in “hip-hop architecture,” a term he coined to describe a philosophy that incorporates art and culture and emphasizes a collaborative approach to designing and utilizing spaces. Sager told Ford about the project, and he was keen to lend his expertise. He says the dream school is a perfect fit for his unique style. “I’ve spent my career advocating for people who typically are not part of the design process, and creating processes that are more participatory to allow communities to define the spaces that they need to thrive,” he says.
Ford mentioned the Samburu Girls Foundation to rapper Lupe Fiasco, who is on the board of Zero Mass Water, a company that makes a panel that converts sunlight and air into clean drinking water. Fiasco offered 40 panels — a donation equivalent to $75,000 — to the school. “There are a lot of hip-hop artists doing work that they don’t talk about a lot, and they’re doing it abroad,” Ford says. “Hopefully after this project is done, it will create some processes that can seamlessly bring artists into the mix, and the hope is to continue to do these projects here in the U.S.”
On May 5, Ford met with Kulea — who was in Madison raising funds for the school — and others for an initial design charrette at Sager’s house, where they mapped out the campus design. “We literally put some of the [traditional Samburu] necklaces that Josephine had and laid them on sketch paper and we started to conceptualize structures,” Ford says, adding that curved buildings and concentric circles are prevalent in African architecture. “The campus, if funded, won’t be something that can work in Madison [or elsewhere in the world]. It’s something uniquely designed in response to the culture of the Samburu.”
Ford will travel with Sager to Kenya later this month to work with the rescued girls to design a central pavillion for the campus that will serve as an outdoor kitchen and gathering space. Together, they will learn to create bricks using a combination of traditional methods and 3D printing, as well as a canopy inspired by the colorful Samburu jewelry. Ford plans to return in August with other architects and hip-hop artists for a building workshop led by Samburu girls.
Madison pediatrician Jasmine Zapata, who as part of her public health practice does significant work with African American girls, is designing curriculum on mental health and empowerment to be used in the school. With so many interdisciplinary connections, Sager says the project is an example of the Wisconsin Idea in action. “This has the potential to be something really powerful,” she says. “There’s something for everyone on campus.”
