Brief History

  • Upon establishment in 1985 till 1993, FIDA Kenya was an affiliate Federation International De Abogadas – (FIDA), the international body which was formed in 1944 in Mexico by a group of women lawyers whose aim was to promote women’s rights globally.
  • At the UN Conference the Kenyan women lawyers found it fit to form a Kenyan Chapter to champion for womens rights in Kenya.
  • From 1985 to 1990, FIDA Kenya activities were from a founder member’s private law office at Agip House along Haile Selassie Avenue.
  • On the 1st of November 1991 the organization established a secretariat with part-time volunteers recruited to co-ordinate all activities including research, legal literacy as well as operating a free legal aid clinic.
  • FIDA Kenya was officially registered on 11th March 1993 under the Non-Governmental Organizations Co-ordination Act, Laws of Kenya.

FIDA-Kenya is a women lawyers’ organization established in 1985 after the UN Third World Women Conference held in Nairobi. It is the oldest women rights organization in Eastern Africa and as such is a depository of the innovations and approaches applied by the women rights movements in the region for the last two decades. Membership to FIDA-Kenya is open to Kenyan women lawyers and women law students. The organization has its secretariat in Nairobi and branch offices in Kisumu and Mombasa and with a number of projects in rural areas, where most Kenyan women live. At the local level FIDA-Kenya is connected to the indigent woman through its legal aid clinics and community action groups empowered to grass ‘root’ women rights at the municipal levels. At the national level, FIDA is connected horizontally with like-minded players from whom it shares practices and innovations and vertically with strategic institutions of government through which it exerts policy and practice influence. Internationally, FIDA-Kenya is recognized as a foremost African actor in the area of women empowerment. The organization implements programmes and projects in line with its vision, mission and values as outlined below.