
Nerima Akinyi Were
Legal Director
Nerima Were is an LLB and LLM Graduate from the University of Pretoria, currently pursuing her PhD with the University of Nairobi. She is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, having completed a post graduate diploma at the Kenya School of Law and a pupillage at Bowmans, Kenya.
She has worked as a researcher at the Constitutional Court and the Land Claims Court in South Africa. She joined the Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS as a volunteer becoming a program officer and manager for the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights thematic area, and eventually the Deputy Executive Director and Acting Executive Director. She has also worked as a tutorial fellow at the University of Nairobi where she is pursuing her PhD.
In 2018 she was a Mandela Washington Fellow in the civic leadership track at the Presidential Precinct. She is a member of the Feminist Legal Network, as well as a Board Member of Planned Parenthood Global, Africa Regional Office; the chair of the Advisory Board of Teen Seed (a Community Based-Organisation in Nairobi); and a member of the GFAN International Steering Committee.
Nerima’s career objectives are to create and strengthen feminist work places, become senior counsel, and imbue feminism in global public health within the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Nerima joins ISLA as the Legal Director, using her constitutional law, feminist, human rights, and leadership and management backgrounds to contribute to ISLA’s goal of creating a feminist future both within and outside of the workplace. Through her learning she hopes to mentor more women into the feminist litigation arena and contribute to the development of feminist jurisprudence both personally and collectively.
Nerima is passionate about pilates, reality TV, going to the movies, and African literature.