Maryana Munyendo is a Child Safety Education Consultant, the Founder and Executive Director of Missing Child Kenya.

She is also an author, 2019 Top 40 under 40 Kenyan Women, an Eisenhower Fellow, and an alumna of the Harvard Kennedy School custom executive program.  

Munyendo’s professional background is in Communications and Public Relations. 

When she joined Daystar University for her undergraduate course, she was eyeing Radio and TV Production because everybody said she had a voice for radio.  

However, one of her lecturers noticed that she worked well behind the scenes during assigned projects and advised her to change her major to Public Relations, which was a turnaround for her, professionally.  


Maryana Munyendo. PHOTO/COURTESY

In the past 15 years, she has enjoyed working across different sectors including banking, training, and education.  

“I love children and I’m passionate about making a difference in their lives. I dream of a world where children can play without fear. My goal is to leverage on technology and the power of community participation in child protection,” said Munyendo proudly despite not having kids of her own yet. 

She is an author of children’s books; High 5, the first of the Safety Stories Series targeting children from 3 to 6 years and The adventures of Kito & Lulu, which mirrors children’s everyday experiences through which they can learn about safety using storytelling and creativity.  

Munyendo emphasises that talking to children from an early age about their safety is an important part of keeping them safe.  

Parents, teachers and caregivers, can be highly effective instructors in safety behaviour for children by using this fun and interactive storybooks in an entertaining and educational way.  


Maryana Munyendo. PHOTO/COURTESY

“The goal is to create local, relevant, contextualised content on child safety for children in Kenya, in English and Swahili languages that can be used across the East African Region. The Safety Stories Series also holds great potential to grow into an animated cartoon series for TV and online platforms.” 

So how did she establish the Missing Child Kenya and managed to run it over the years? 

“In response to the lack of a national database for missing children, I founded Missing Child Kenya in July 2016, a non-profit community-led initiative that uses technology and crowdsourcing to search, trace and reunify missing, displaced, lost and found children.  

“Missing Child Kenya operates the only toll-free helpline in Kenya 0800 22 33 44 dedicated to responding to the emergency needs of missing, lost and found/ displaced children but also link them to services for their short or long-term care and rehabilitation.” 

When she started Missing Child Kenya, she looked for agencies from other African countries to learn best practices from but only found two - in Egypt and in South Africa.  

“The lack of dedicated services and a supporting legal and policy framework for missing children is not a problem unique to Kenya only. I found myself alone trying to make sense of an uncharted phenomenon.” 


Maryana Munyendo. PHOTO/COURTESY

Since inception in July 2016 to November 2020, Missing Child Kenya has found and reunited 496 children with their families, committed 73 children to Government homes for safe care and custody, documented 21 children as deceased and are still searching for another 190. 

This makes a total of 780 children in the case files of Missing Child Kenya.  

“I have my happiest moment, every time we issue an alert stating – CHILD FOUND, and my lowest moments are for each of the 21 times we have had to issue an alert - CHILD FOUND DECEASED”. 

Munyendo says her organisation works collaboratively with the Government and she is a founding member of the technical working group spearheaded by the Department of Children’s Services which is developing standard procedures for missing children in Kenya.  

“Ultimately, my big dream is to use the model framework of operations for missing children in Kenya to create a community of practice for Africa, starting with the East African Community as we progress outwards to the rest of the continent,” she added. 

As an emerging front-runner on the issue of missing children, Munyendo was nominated by the Aga Khan Foundation East Africa for a Leadership for the 21st Century Africa cohort at Harvard Kennedy School in 2018.  

Later in 2019, she was awarded and recognised in the Top 40 Under 40 Kenyan Women for her outstanding work as Kenya’s first champion for missing children’s rights.  

Accordingly, in June 2020, she was nominated as the Eisenhower Fellow-Kenya, for the Eisenhower Fellowships Fall 2020 Women’s Leadership Program.  

“My journey in leadership has been to work hard and create national and international partnerships on the issue of missing children to amend laws, enhance data sharing, and timely reporting of the missing children, which I hope to achieve through these fellowships. 

“Partnerships and alliances are very key in my line of work. I am the coordinator for Kenya, for the Rotary Action Group against Slavery (RAGAS), formally recognised as a Rotarian Action Group by the Rotary International (RI) Board and works closely with organisations dedicated to ending human trafficking.”  

As the Kenyan Coordinator and Board Member for the RAGAS, she believes that the time to start integration and constructive use of technology to fight human trafficking is now.  

“Through technology, we can work together for the protection of human rights, education, exemplary citizenship, the community, advocacy and business.” 


Maryana Munyendo. PHOTO/COURTESY

Missing Child Kenya signed a landmark partnership with Italian Missing Children Institute to provide support for forensic imaging, photographic manipulation techniques, adult age progression, facial reconstruction techniques and photo repair of their database of missing Kenyan children.  

How they will effectively apply the new technique depends on updating the missing children’s mug shots every two years and, for individuals over the age of 18, every five years.  

This way, she says, they will be able to circulate images which are consistent with the age of the missing child hence make their search more effective.  

“I am really excited about this; so far, we have worked with four families to begin this project.”  

Missing Child Kenya works with families to provide images of their missing child by simulating changes in their appearance over the years through facial recognition technology. 

So, how does Maryana Munyendo describe herself?  

“I am a people’s person. I enjoy meeting and working with different people and I am known for being a great listener and a clear communicator. I engage easily with people from all walks of life, my favourite audience being children.

“I am also fun-loving with a wicked sense of humour that has enabled me to laugh at myself and pick myself up again every time I felt I had not succeeded at something.Other people will say that I am primarily ambivert, simply put, an outgoing introvert.”

Maryana Munyendo at work. PHOTO/COURTESY

Collaboration. This is the value that shapes the way she works and lives.

“My main driving value in what I do is collaboration. Through collaboration, I have formed strong alliances for lobbying on policy review and community-driven cultural change. We have managed to use collaborative vehicles for change to lead campaigns and conversations about missing children.”

Locally, Missing Child Kenya has partnered with top teams in the Kenyan Football League led by Gor Mahia and AFC Leopard.

Internationally, it has partnered with European League Football Club AS Roma and last year they partnered with BBC Africa in the investigative Docu-Series, The Baby Stealers.

From these collaborations, Munyendo notes, Missing Child Kenya has reunited children with their families due to awareness created on their cases and sparked national and international conversations on the state of missing children in Kenya.

“Protecting children is a shared responsibility of governments, law enforcement authorities, parents, guardians, caregivers and the community. It takes a village to raise a child - and with technological advances, the global village is now borderless and digital.”

She believes that protecting children is a shared responsibility between parents and the public and her Missing Child Kenya, depends a lot on social good of individuals across Kenya.

PHOTO/COURTESY

“When you follow our Facebook and Twitter profiles and share a missing child alert, you are making your much-valued individual contribution to reuniting a missing child with their family; you are our eyes and ears on the ground.

“We are champions of open data; anyone can search through the online image poster database by simply using #MissingChildKE.”

Munyendo has learnt that it is not just about expanding the hours of their toll-free line from 12 to 24 hours, but also expanding the network of other entities in the child protection ecosystem for a 360 degrees referral mechanism that is ultimately in the best interests of the child.

“We are lighting a candle of hope to guide these children back home to their loving families. We do not want to blow out the candle ever, especially during the night.

She ends by calling for collaborative support partnerships to upscale to 24 hours operation so that they can continue to assure parents they have not forgotten about their missing children.