This episode includes discussions around and references to sexual abuse

In this Sunlit Conversation, our guest Valerie Dimino discusses her experience of co-authoring Jessica Renee’s memoir The Man Behind the Curtain (2022). The memoir explores Jessica Renee's journey of “triumph over trauma” from surviving years of sexual abuse by her stepfather, and has become a platform for her to speak awareness to these truths and provide hope to other survivors.

Co-author Valerie Dimino shares with us in this episode the significance of bringing to light the complexity of stories like Jessica’s, while maintaining the authenticity and impact of difficult truths. Furthermore, she emphasizes the importance of amplifying the voices of those who are often silenced. To learn more about Valerie’s work and the memoir, we encourage you to visit her website valeriedimino.com.

This Sunlit Conversation with our guest Sharon Kasiti discusses the state of maternal health and healthcare in Kenya. Sharon, who is currently a nurse in Nairobi, shares with us the existing barriers to accessing maternal healthcare, but also the developments being made to improve it with telemedicine platforms such as Malaica (www.malaica.com). Additionally, she emphasizes the importance of community-level support in improving maternal health outcomes.

In our first Sunlit Conversation, Juani intern Stacy Wanjohi speaks with our guest Maureen Onyango about the impact of polygamous marriages on women and children in Kenya. Maureen shares with us some of her experiences within a culture where polygamy is a common practice and explains how it influences gender roles within the family. Overall, she hopes to shed light on how marital relationships in Kenya situate an unequal power dynamic between men and women, and that there is a need to empower young women in such situations.

In this shorter Sunlit Conversation that is a follow-up to the previous conversation with Sharon Kasiti, Juani interns Radha and Izzy further discuss maternal healthcare in Kenya and the U.S. They share statistics about the state of maternal health in both countries and highlight the role of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic in these communities. Overall, the information that they share in this episode hopes to inspire action towards better health equity.