Jane Weru

Jane Weru is a lawyer by profession and holds a Master’s Degree in NGO Management from the London School of Economics. From 1993 to 2001, she worked with Kituo Cha Sheria, a legal aid and human rights organization in Nairobi, first as head of legal services and then as Executive Director. Most of her work focused on public interest litigation on behalf of poor communities threatened with forceful evictions and violent demolitions. In 2001, she helped found Pamoja Trust, a nonprofit organization that mobilized and supported grassroots movements of the urban poor by providing technical, legal and financial support. From 2006 to 2010, Jane served as a Board Member of the Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI), an international organization of slum dwellers federations with affiliates in 37 countries of the global south.  In 2010, Jane served as Team Leader for the Kenya Railway Relocation Action Plan for the Ministry of Transport supported by the World Bank for the resettlement of 10,000 households sitting on the railway reserve in Kibera and Mukuru. She is currently the Executive Director and founding member of Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT), a non-profit organization working on developing innovative community led solutions to housing and land tenure problems for the urban poor in Kenya. Jane has, since August 2018, been the Project leader of the Mukuru Special Planning Area, a project of the Nairobi County Government, aimed at developing an integrated development plan to improve the lives of the 100,000 households that presently occupy over 600 acres of land within the city.  Jane is an Ashoka Fellow and also served as a member of the National Task Force for the preparation of the Community Land Bill and the Evictions and Resettlement Bill.