Alice Ndung’u resides her dream. Each morning, she wakes up able to struggle for justice and equality as a human rights lawyer in her hometown of Nairobi, Kenya.
A self-described empath, Alice felt a calling to assist others from a younger age. “I used to be raised in a middle-class household the place I by no means lacked for something,” she explains. “Nevertheless, I knew that was not the case for lots of people round me. Many couldn’t afford primary requirements resembling meals or water. I wished to be ready the place I may create insurance policies to assist these people. Most legal guidelines are created with out contemplating the world’s most weak populations—however we should contemplate their voices when making choices that can have an effect on their lives.”
After graduating school (see photograph under, together with her household), Alice turned an affiliate at a regulation agency in Kenya’s capital metropolis, the place she works on pro-bono instances serving to space youth keep away from incarceration for petty crimes. The nation’s judicial system processes these younger offenders as adults; They’re typically taken to courtroom after which detained in juvenile properties or prisons.
“Most of those juveniles come from poor households,” she says. “While you discuss to them, they are saying: ‘It’s not that I need to steal. I simply don’t have meals.’ In a single case I labored on, a toddler had stolen a telephone as a result of he hadn’t eaten for per week. However judges or prosecutors shouldn’t be coping with these instances. We as a society have compelled these youngsters to interrupt the regulation by ignoring their actuality. We should discover a extra compassionate approach to assist them.”
Searching for to broaden her data of human rights points and discover more practical methods to assist her younger shoppers, Alice enrolled within the on-line course Human Rights, Human Wrongs: Difficult Poverty, Vulnerability, and Social Exclusion. Out there on the edX platform, the course was developed by SDG Academy, a part of a United Nations (UN) initiative targeted on international sustainable improvement. The curriculum gave Alice a brand new lens by means of which to take a look at Kenya’s challenges—and confirmed her how she may contribute to constructing a extra sustainable and inclusive future for her nation.
Making Strides with Self-Paced Studying and World-Class Instruction
SDG Academy’s course marked Alice’s first on-line studying expertise. Past the engaging material, the monetary help she obtained from edX—which coated 90% of the associated fee for her verified certificates—was a driving consider her choice to enroll.
From the start, Alice appreciated having the chance to be taught at her personal tempo. “I internalized the content material higher since I may take heed to the lectures and full the required readings alone schedule,” she says. “It was an enormous change from my in-person undergraduate expertise, which generally required finishing 5 readings for only one class in at some point!”
As a working skilled, Alice additionally valued having the ability to examine throughout nights and weekends. Most faculties in Kenya solely provide weekday courses throughout enterprise hours, making it tough for folks with full-time jobs to additional their schooling. “Advancing in your profession whereas concurrently working in your profession is a large benefit,” she emphasizes.
Moreover, Alice was wanting to be taught from the course’s two instructors, Joshua Castellino and Sarah Bradshaw. They’re each professors at London’s Middlesex College and leaders within the UN’s Sustainable Growth Options Community.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime alternative,” explains Alice. “The course gave me direct entry to international consultants in human rights regulation. I additionally had the chance to work together with friends from all around the world by means of the course’s group dialogue characteristic, which was woven into the tip of every lesson. I vividly bear in mind the insightful conversations I had with different human rights-focused folks from Mexico, Ghana, and the UK.”
Alice sees edX as a strategic path to profession progress for herself and others. “The platform is a good device for exposing your self to new concepts and increasing your potential,” she says. “And SDG Academy’s course is a superb selection for anybody trying to broaden their understanding of the world and champion human rights.”
A Lifelong Ardour for Serving to Nairobi’s Most Weak
Since finishing SDG Academy’s course, Alice has elevated her engagement with native organizations that help communities in want. A kind of teams is the Judiciary of Kenya.
“I’m making use of what I realized within the course to focus our conversations round extra progressive ideas in juvenile justice,” she says. “My aim is to assist much more of those younger folks have entry to free authorized providers—and search for methods to combine different justice programs, resembling household group conferencing.”
Alice can be strategizing new methods to coach others on the significance of together with Kenya’s most weak populations in constructing the nation’s future.
“My expertise with edX has positively cemented my want to be within the human rights subject, now greater than ever,” she concludes.
