I’M WORTH DEFENDING-[IWD] is a modern Anti-Rape Self-Defense program based in Nairobi Kenya. The program was started by an American woman who came to Kenya to visit her husband who was running an orphan sponsorship program. What she saw and heard in the slums of Korogocho as far as rape is concerned, made her remember her Self-Defense class that she had taken six years back. She saw the need and her passion for the eradication of rape (being a rape survivor herself), offered an excellent opportunity for making impact. She never wanted to inflate her will and belief systems to become African realities but rather looked for where the passion resonates by starting from what she knew and from her own strengths. It is upon that reasoning that she brought to Kenya two Self-Defense instructors from “Alive & Kicking” in America to train Kenyans who could in turn take up the mantle and train women, Girls and Children within Kenya. We are an eight (8)-member team of instructors who travel from slum to slum-visiting schools, churches and community groups. We offer our lifesaving Self-Defense skills free of charge to women and children ages 7 and older.

Class History:

Our teaching techniques and methods have their roots in the American feminist movement of the 1970's. Using materials from a variety of sources, (most notably F.I.S.T.) Susannah MacKaye helped co-found Women Defending Ourselves- WDO. This group taught a popular class at Stanford University in the 1980's and then brought the program to the San Francisco Bay area.

Lori Dobeus, a former WDO member, went on to found another successful program called Women’s Safety Project. It was here that Wendi Deetz took her training and became an instructor. Recently, these two organizations merged to form Alive and Kicking which continues a stellar tradition of community safety instruction based on the philosophy IWD supports and actively promotes; That it does not take years of martial arts training to be able to defend oneself. One can learn practical, memorable, effective self defense techniques, pass them on to the community and create a grassroots self defense movement.

Susannah Mackaye

“ I started teaching women's self-defense in 1985 am still active today in the San Francisco Bay area. The two things I want every person I teach to get from my classes are ‘You are worth defending and you CAN defend yourself!’ Believing in yourself is 90% of the fight. When I'm not teaching self-defense I am a psychiatric social worker in Oakland, California.”

Wendi Deetz

“ I can’t say I've ever had an experience, in all my work with nonprofits and in all my travels through life, where I was able to interact with people who have so little and who still want to give so much. One after the other, they came up to the mat for our full-force drill, an exercise where they get to simulate a real fight on the pads. I have never seen anything like it. We had to hold them back. They came back to the line again and again and again and again. The room erupted with the energy and I'm sure our students could FEEL the impact of what their work would do in the lives of women and girls.”