IWD was founded by Lee Sinclair, a writer/activist living in San Francisco. In 2001 she and her husband Dr. Jake Sinclair had been coordinating a child care and sponsorship program for AIDS orphans in Kenya through their non profit organization Manasseh's Children. It was her experiences with these vulnerable children and their stories of rape, incest and sexual abuse that led Lee to realize that her own Self-Defense training could be lifesaving when applied to children living in the area.

Lee began teaching SD to small groups of local children but it quickly became clear that the problem deserved a larger effort.

In October 2005, she contacted a group from Eldoret Kenya and hired them to come and teach the first year round Self-Defense classes in Nairobi. This team, called "Dolphin Anti Rape AIDS Control Outreach", taught basic Self-Defense strategies and situational skills to over 75,000 school children! (Go Dolphin!) It was Lee’s involvement with Dolphin that highlighted the need for an expanded, more comprehensive approach to addressing rape, AIDS and Gender-Based Violence (GBV).

In February 2007, with the help of two US based Self Defense Instructors, Susannah MacKaye and Wendi Deetz, the first IWD team was formed in Korogocho slum Kenya. On February 26th 2007, after a month of specialized training, we began teaching our first classes. Since then we have brought this vital training to thousands of women and children.

Please click "Projects" to learn more about our other innovative anti-rape/AIDS activities!