Wanjiku Kaime

Universitetslektor|Senior Lecturer

Wanjiku Kaime (Previously Kaime-Atterhög)

I am a Kenyan-Swedish senior researcher and lecturer at the Department of Psychology and Social Work at Mid Sweden University. I completed my PhD in Medical Science (International Health) in 2012 at Uppsala University in Sweden with an emphasis on the (re)habilitation and (re)integration of "street children" and capacity building of their social and health caregivers.

Across my research, my aim is to study, understand and untangle the complex contributing, intervening and aggravating factors that interact to produce, exacerbate or mitigate vulnerability and disadvantage in children and youth one community at a time and ultimately, one individual at a time. The data are collected within a safe and enabling environment created together with the stakeholders and affected individuals and groups. With the acquired knowledge, we then design, co-create, implement and evaluate customised actions that bring about the desired change in the study populations, and of smaller groups within them. My vulnerability framework, intervention models and training curriculum for care providers have been used within my projects and by students in Africa, Asia and Sweden. The vulnerability model has also been adapted and used to understand and analyse factors related to sexual exploitation in six Asian countries by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) as well as in four European countries in a project funded by the European Commission.

My research and social innovations bridge theory and practice and demonstrate models for Governments, Civil Society, Development Cooperations and communities to apply in a coordinated manner to bring about the desired change that goes beyond the transition to sustainable livelihoods of the affected children and youth but also of their families and communities.

I am currently involved in the following projects as a principal researcher:

1. From the margins of society to citizens: the journeys of marginalized youth in Kenya, Uganda, Thailand and Sweden.

2. Preventive care and health education to keep a resource-constrained and vulnerable population safe from COVID-19 in Kenya and Uganda (Safe from COVID-19)

3. A Pathway to Employment and University Education for Marginalized Youth in Eastern Africa: The House of Plenty Vocational Training Model (HOPE-VTI Model)

4. Redefining Care for Young Persons Exiting Prostitution in Sweden (Redefining Care)

5. From Emergency Support in Sweden to Community-Based Interventions for Romanian Beggars from Pittesti (Community-based Interventions)


Sidan uppdaterades 2023-11-19