Essy is a human rights defender working to promote basic rights and fundamental freedoms. She has been part of social movements and have over ten years of experience working on human rights with a specific focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in Kenya. She is currently the founder and Executive Director of Initiative for Equality and Non Discrimination (INEND) that advances the human rights of sexual and gender minorities.

Her advocacy journey with organizations started in Nairobi, Kenya in 2009, where she worked with Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya and Persons Marginalized and Aggrieved (PEMA Kenya) from 2010 to 2016. She is also a 2014 fellow of the Human Rights Advocates Program at Columbia University. Esther also the 2017 Upinde Awards, Shujaa Category Nominee. Her experience in these organisations led to the conceptualization and formation of INEND to directly contribute to a safer environment by working with the documented perpetrators of violence towards creating an enabling environment for the sexual and gender minorities and bridging the gap between sexual and gender minorities and the society at large, by educating the public on the human rights of sexual and gender minorities.

As a Human Rights defender working on sexual minority rights in the Coastal Region of Kenya, which is Muslim dominated, advocacy for human rights of sexual and gender minorities was one of the greatest challenges faced by Essy. She however managed to work with religious leaders and establish a network of religious leaders who continue to work with sexual and gender minorities.

She has also been able to start dialogue with motorcycle taxi operators who have been known to inflict actual violence on sexual and gender minorities. Currently their leaders are being trained as trainers of trainers (TOT) to be the ones reaching out to their peers with human rights messages for sexual and gender minorities.

“There are no gay rights, there are only human Rights as we are all human beings not gay beings,” says Essy