Meza Yetu Collective

Meza Yetu Collective Meza Yetu is a feminist collective based in Nairobi, Kenya. Formerly Unmothering the Woman.

We work at the intersection of evidence, narrative building, and creativity to shift how stories about African women, gender, and power are told and remembered.

29/04/2026

In Kibera and Mathare, the workshops created space for adolescent girls to reflect, question what they had been told, and make meaning in their own words.

Across both groups, a shared movement kept emerging: between what had been heard before, what was observed in the moment, and what had to be worked out for themselves.

What surfaced was not only individual reflection, but collective sense-making and narrative-building grounded in lived experience.

Full video on our


Real stories. Real voices. No scripts.Our workshops used a feminist approach, centering your first period memories, mess...
27/04/2026

Real stories. Real voices. No scripts.

Our workshops used a feminist approach, centering your first period memories, messy or clear, just as they are.

Some wrote, some made collages, many did both. Every story matters.

How does a feminist approach change how you remember or talk about your first period? 

Share below or tag a friend who should join the conversation!

 

 

 

22/04/2026

The workshops were developed and facilitated in collaboration with , , .aaliyah , and

Their role extended beyond implementation. The way the sessions were held, the pace of the room, and the forms of engagement available to participants shaped what could be expressed.

Participants were not directed toward specific conclusions, yet similar themes emerged across both sites. This consistency sits alongside the way the workshops were structured, suggesting that how a space is held has a direct relationship to what becomes visible within it.

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Available research in Kenya shows that conversations about menstruation often occur late or in ways that do not support ...
17/04/2026

Available research in Kenya shows that conversations about menstruation often occur late or in ways that do not support understanding when it becomes immediately relevant. The workshops in Kibera and Mathare make it possible to see how this plays out in practice. Participants did not describe a complete absence of information but a gap between exposure and understanding, where fragments of knowledge are present but not yet usable in the moment they are needed. They spoke about working through that moment on their own, drawing on partial information and arriving at clarity gradually rather than through direct explanation.

The distinction between having heard and being prepared begins to matter here in a different way.

 

 

15/04/2026

In December 2025, we worked with 33 adolescent girls in Kibera and Mathare to understand how the first experience of getting a period is encountered and remembered.

What we found was a recurring in how that moment is approached, interpreted, and carried. The differences between individual experiences remained, but certain elements appeared often enough to begin to feel familiar.

Full video on our Link in Bio / Youtube page ()

This is what one participant shared during the workshops in Kibera. She was not alone. Across both communities, girls de...
10/04/2026

This is what one participant shared during the workshops in Kibera. She was not alone. Across both communities, girls described the same experience in their own words. Confusion. Fear. Silence where conversation should have been.

Several described carrying that confusion alone, unsure who to tell or how to begin the conversation. What they described was not unusual. It was a pattern. And it pointed to something that goes beyond access to products: the absence of someone willing to sit with them and talk about what was changing.


08/04/2026

When you got your first period, did anyone actually sit down with you and talk about what was happening? Not just hand you something. Not tell you "you're a woman now, act like it." Actually talk to you about it.

For a lot of the girls we worked with in Kibera and Mathare, that conversation never happened. Their first period came with confusion, silence, and questions they had to figure out on their own.

Over the next few weeks, we're sharing what they made when someone finally asked them about it.

Today, we are asking, was your experience like?


We held workshops with adolescent girls in Kibera and Mathare. We asked them about puberty and the shame and silence aro...
02/04/2026

We held workshops with adolescent girls in Kibera and Mathare. We asked them about puberty and the shame and silence around it. What they described was remarkably consistent across both communities. They highlighted a gap in products and information, but also in conversation. In someone choosing to sit with them and explain what this period exactly is.

This is what we found. This is The Period In Between.


31/03/2026

This, is the PERIOD in between.


Across this series we mapped a system.First the scale of anti gender narratives in Kenya’s digital spaces.Then the infra...
14/03/2026

Across this series we mapped a system.

First the scale of anti gender narratives in Kenya’s digital spaces.
Then the infrastructure that distributes them.
Then the playbook that engineers emotional and religious mobilisation around gender justice debates.

The final question is what allows communities to keep speaking within that environment.

Our research with shows that the answer is not only resistance. It is adaptation. Activists, advocates, and digital rights defenders are constantly adjusting how they communicate, where they organize, and how they protect one another.

These strategies rarely receive the same visibility as the backlash itself. Yet they are what keep digital spaces open for feminist organising and gender justice advocacy.

During Women’s Month, conversations about equality often focus on laws and institutions. This research shows that the struggle is also unfolding inside the digital information environments where narratives about gender are shaped.

Swipe through for the final part of the series.

Read the full report and explore the counter narrative framework through the links in our bio.

Understanding the architecture of backlash is the first step toward protecting gender justice in digital spaces.





Our research found that 44% of anti-gender content in Kenya’s digital spaces originates on Telegram, where it is package...
10/03/2026

Our research found that 44% of anti-gender content in Kenya’s digital spaces originates on Telegram, where it is packaged and pushed across WhatsApp, X, and Facebook.

Over half of Telegram posts contain visual assets. About 8% are documents: sermon templates, pseudo-reports, and PDFs designed for redistribution.

This is usually not an organic public opinion. It is a distribution system.

This is Part 2 of our IWD research series. Swipe through to see the mechanics.







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