The scars on Rania Blessings Charles’ hands tell a story of survival. Faint lines from razor blade cuts remain as permanent reminders of her aunt’s rage over missing money, money Rania never took.
At 26, the South Sudanese refugee has endured more loss than many face in a lifetime: witnessing her infant brother die during domestic violence, fleeing her country at age 12, years of physical abuse and near despair in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp.
Yet today, she speaks with quiet determination about her future, crediting an unlikely source for her resilience: Stop Child Abuse (SCA), a grassroots organisation founded by Fidel Aganze.
Rania arrived in Kakuma in September 2023, armed with a diploma that she she’d earned through street food sales, crochet work, and church support.
But academic credentials offered little protection from the isolation and fear that gripped her in the sprawling camp. Having registered as a refugee in 2018 after years of hiding in Nairobi, she came to Kakuma to obtain proper identification, which the UN demands of refugees seeking official documentation.
Her friend, Imani, connected her to a family willing to provide temporary housing. What Rania encountered there would change the course of several lives.
The household included four orphaned children: three girls and one boy, ranging from roughly five to fourteen years old, who had lost their parents and now lived with their aunt.
“They will treat their kids much better than these kids, and these kids are orphans, so they didn’t have anyone but their aunt,” she explains. The children were denied medical attention, education and food while the aunt’s biological children ate well.
The eldest girl confided in Rania during private conversations, mentioning an organisation called Stop Child Abuse. The girl had heard about it but explained that the children weren’t allowed to go anywhere except the market, nowhere they might find help. Rania knew she had to act.
Breaking the Silence
Through her friend Rosetta, Rania learnt more about SCA and made her way to their office. When she arrived, she came to report the children’s situation, but the staff recognised something else in her story.
“They even asked me, ‘How am I surviving here?'” Rania recalls. “So that’s when I came up with my story, told them the story, and then they would help me despite me not being a child.”
SCA’s community outreach staff had already begun their assessment.
According to Aganze, tSCA follows a meticulous process: “After doing an assessment, we just invite the survivor so that we can have counselling with them. After having counseling, together with different organisations, we do a follow-up to make sure this case reaches the police station.”
But the organisation’s approach is not purely punitive. It also works with community leaders to facilitate dialogue. They sit together to counsel the abuser to avoid repetition.
For the four children, SCA provided immediate emotional support.
“They will talk to them, give them activities because they’re still young kids, give them toys that will make them be busy sometimes,” Rania describes. Counselors visited the children regularly, creating safe spaces for them to process their experiences.
Crucially, SCA staff also confronted the aunt directly, regularly visiting her home and providing material assistance too.
Following this, the aunt’s relationship with the kids improved, as Rania says. “I’ve seen that she has really changed. It’s not like before. The beating has stopped. They look much healthier.”