No Means No
An empowerment-based behavior change intervention to reduce sexual assault victimization and to improve sexual assault resistance skills and self-defense knowledge.
Program overview
The IMpower program was originally implemented in Nairobi, Kenya. This school-based sexual assault prevention program was designed to increase resistance skills (i.e., mental, verbal and physical skills) and increase empowerment self-defense knowledge (i.e., the ability to recognize risk and respond using resistance strategies to prevent a sexual assault).
Since 2018, No Means No Worldwide (NMNW) has expanded to deliver No Means No programs with local partners in Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa and the U.S.
NMNW trains highly skilled local mentors as No Means No Instructors, certified to teach the skills-based curriculum, facilitate meaningful discussion, and provide referrals for additional services when needed. Instructors work under the management of local implementing partners and are from the communities they serve, in order to ensure that programs are locally relevant, culturally appropriate, and sustainable.
The evidence-based IMPower system was developed in Kenya in 2009 by No Means No Worldwide (NMNW) Founder, Lee Paiva, while working with the Kenyan NGO, Ujamaa Africa.
Ujamaa conducted extensive research to study and refine IMpower as they delivered it to thousands of young people in Kenya and expanded to Malawi in 2013. This impact research proved both the efficacy and scalability of the IMpower system.
Section Two