Rooted

In this powerful episode of Rooted Podcast, we sit down with Jackie Odhiambo, the Founder and Executive Director of Nyanam Widows Rising—a Kenya-based, women-led organization transforming communities by equipping widows to overcome stigma, reclaim identity, and lead with dignity.Jackie’s story begins with three widowed women who raised her—each shaping her worldview through faith, resilience, courage, and an unshakable sense of justice. Yet as a young adult, Jackie confronted the painful contradiction between the strong widows she knew and the marginalized widows she encountered in community work.This tension became her well moment—her spiritual turning point—leading her to see widowhood not as a social sentence but as a calling into leadership.Since 2019, Nyanam has grown 41-fold, from serving 80 widows to more than 3,300, through a holistic model—Voices of Change—that strengthens spiritual, social, mental, and economic outcomes for widows and their children.Jackie speaks candidly about faith, identity, trauma in leadership, public health insights, generational healing, and the long obedience of saying “yes” again and again to a mission God continues to unfold.This conversation is tender, profound, deeply spiritual, and full of courage.👥 About Our Guest: Jackie OdhiamboJackie Odhiambo is the Founder and Executive Director of Nyanam Widows Rising, a Kenyan grassroots organization equipping widows to overcome stigma and lead transformational change within their families and communities.Under Jackie’s leadership, Nyanam has grown from 80 participants to over 3,300 widows—a 41-fold expansion in just five years. Their signature program, Voices of Change, strengthens: • Spiritual grounding • Mental and emotional wellness • Social belonging • Economic empowermentJackie holds a Master’s in Public Health from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and is pursuing her PhD in Public Health through a joint program with Maseno University (Kenya) and UCSF (USA). Her research explores widowhood, stigma, and health outcomes.A woman of profound faith, justice, and integrity, Jackie believes widowhood is not an identity of loss, but a platform for leadership—a conviction shaping thousands of families across Kenya.📲 Connect with Jackie & Nyanam Widows RisingWebsite → https://nyanam.org💬 Stay Connected with Blood:Water🎧 Listen & Subscribe📍 YouTube →⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@BloodWaterMission⁠⁠📷 Instagram →⁠ https://www.instagram.com/bloodwatermission/⁠📘 Facebook →⁠ https://web.facebook.com/bloodwatermission?_rdc=1&_rdr#⁠🐦 Twitter/X →⁠ https://x.com/bloodwater⁠📩 Email us → [email protected]

We’ve been working on something meaningful… and it’s finally here! 🎙️ Rooted: A new Podcast from The Leader Collective at Blood:Water. The word rooted itself means: Having developed from something. Very strong. Firmly fixed. On Rooted we sit with the leaders Blood:Water serves across East and Southern Africa to hear how defining moments planted them firmly in the purpose that drives them. This is a podcast about people. About the full, unedited totality of a life: origin stories, hopes, disappointments and unimaginable victories. Because every mission starts with a person. And every person has roots.Our hope is that you, our listeners, would find common ground here and that these conversations would stir something deep in you—that they would inspire you to flourish in your purpose and lead on mission. #RootedPodcast#ChangeMakers #BloodWater#FundingTheFrontline

Every mission starts with a person, and every person has a story. On Rooted, we sit with leaders across East and Southern Africa to hear how defining moments planted them firmly in the purpose that drives them. This is Rooted, a podcast from the Leader Collective at Blood Water.