Safeguarding

Safeguarding is everything Learning Lions does to prevent harm, abuse, exploitation and neglect, and to respond when they happen: physical, emotional, sexual and digital. One policy covers the whole organisation, Learning Lions, Startup Lions Assets Kenya and Lions Strength, and everyone who acts for it or is reached by it: staff, trainers, coaches, volunteers, mentors, visitors, trainees, explorers and residents. It replaces the older sexual harassment policy; sexual harassment is fully covered here. If something is wrong right now, go to Safety and Welfare: the people on campus and the numbers that work from any phone.

The Promise

1. Everyone is treated with dignity and respect. No one is harmed, exploited, intimidated or silenced.
2. Reporting is never punished. Anyone who retaliates against a reporter, a survivor or a witness faces disciplinary action, and if someone with power over you breaks a rule, the rule is still on your side.
3. A report is acknowledged within 24 hours and risk-assessed within 48 hours. Those two timelines are non-negotiable.
4. The response is survivor-centred: dignity and choice, confidentiality explained, no forced retelling, and support offered: medical, psychosocial and safety planning.

The Seven Promises

Said on day one of BootCamp and kept every day, by every member of staff.

1. Two adults. A trainer is never alone behind a closed door with one learner.
2. No private digital contact. Class groups only, work only, never at night.
3. No leverage. Whoever grades you does not control your money, and the other way round.
4. No romantic or sexual contact between staff and learners, ever.
5. No shouting, humiliation or insults, about anything, from anyone. Verbal violence is a safeguarding matter, not "just conflict", and no manager may call it discipline.
6. No photos or film without asking. You can say no, and you can withdraw consent.
7. No gifts, loans or borrowing between staff and learners.

Zero Tolerance

These end a person's place at Learning Lions and may go to the police or child protection authorities.

1. Sexual exploitation or abuse.
2. Any sexual activity with a child, meaning anyone under eighteen.
3. Coercion, threats or retaliation connected to sexual conduct.
4. Serious physical assault.
5. Serious abuse of power: making training, benefits, housing, payments or work opportunities depend on favours.

Digital safety is part of the same rule: no harassment, stalking, bullying or threats online; no sharing of intimate images or humiliating content; no misuse of personal data such as photos, identity documents, health information, stipend records or refugee status.

Who Looks After It

The policy names roles, not people. The names and phones of the people holding them are on the board in the studio, on your who-to-call card, and on Safety and Welfare once they are filled in.

Six Ways to Report

Several doors, one system. Use whichever you can.

1. The Safeguarding Focal Point, by the dedicated email or in the weekly open hour.
2. The matron, for daily welfare and immediate support.
3. The HR Officer.
4. Any staff member you trust. They must pass it on; they may not keep it to themselves.
5. The women-only or men-only subcommittee, through your cohort's representative.
6. Sauti Yangu, sautiyangu.learninglions.org, with your name or without it. An anonymous report is still acted on.

If someone is in immediate danger, call Security or the emergency numbers first: 999 or 112 from any phone, Childline 116 for anyone under eighteen, the GBV helpline 1195. They are tap-to-call on Safety and Welfare. Medical help goes through the referral route to the medical team and the dispensary.

What Happens After a Report

1. The report is received, through any of the six doors, and acknowledged within 24 hours.
2. An initial risk assessment is completed within 48 hours.
3. The case is classified. Level 1, low: early correction, coaching, documentation. Level 2, serious: repeated or harmful behaviour, formal investigation. Level 3, critical: sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment, child abuse, serious assault or severe threats; urgent measures and likely referral to the authorities.
4. While a case is open, management and the committee may separate the people involved, change schedules or housing, or suspend the person complained about from duty and from contact with learners.
5. The committee appoints a case committee for that one investigation and gives an investigator a clear mandate. The committee decides; the investigator finds facts. If the Safeguarding Focal Point is involved in the case, the committee's international chair handles it directly.
6. The committee decides and recommends; management and the boards carry it out: coaching, a formal warning, reassignment or removal from contact with learners, termination, or referral to the police or child protection authorities.
7. Follow-up and closure, including a check-in with the survivor.

Everything about a case is confidential, stored securely, shared only with those who must know. The organisation cooperates with the authorities and protects the survivor's safety through any outside process.

Complaints That Are Not Safeguarding

A complaint about a service, a standard or staff conduct that is not primarily safeguarding goes to the Quality Focal Point, by email or in the weekly open hour, or into the central complaint tool. It gets the same structured handling and follow-up.

Children and the School Next Door

A child is anyone under eighteen. Loropio Girls Secondary School is a public school with its own safeguarding policy, which stays in force. Anyone from Learning Lions working with or around the school, in shared facilities, mentoring, ICT support, events, projects or transport, follows the school's rules and this policy both.

For Trainers, Guides, Coaches and Volunteers

The code of conduct for everyone who delivers the programme.

1. Keep clear professional boundaries with learners. Use only the official channels, email and the class groups, for programme communication; no personal channels.
2. No private one-to-one meetings in secluded or unapproved settings.
3. Protect learner data and confidentiality.
4. If a learner tells you something: listen, do not promise to keep it secret, say who you will tell and why, and pass it to the Safeguarding Focal Point the same day. Do not question the other person yourself, and put nothing in a group chat or in Asha.
5. Every member of staff and every volunteer receives safeguarding induction, with a refresher at least once a year. Reporting instructions are posted in the dorms, the classrooms, the offices, the cafeteria and the ICT spaces.
6. Failing the code means a warning, suspension from programme activities, the end of the engagement, removal from the campus, or a report to the authorities where the law requires it.

Where This Comes From

The Safeguarding Policy for Learning Lions, Startup Lions Assets Kenya and Lions Strength, version 2 of 12 February 2026, owned by the Safeguarding, Gender and Quality Committee and approved by the Strategy and Governance Board, and the Learning Lions Professionalism, Code of Conduct and Safeguarding Policy for trainers, guides, coaches and volunteers. The policy's annexes, the contact list, the referral directory, the reporting posters and the Sauti Yangu procedure, are still to be attached, and the February 2026 policy is marked as a draft for adoption.