Educate a Game Changer

Our organization https://www.missingthirdproject.org was started

in 2022 as an idea to give girls and women opportunity to stand up for

themselves. The girls and women in question are those in communities that still

have social norms and gender stereotypes that make it difficult for women to

make their own life choices and decisions.

So far, we've worked with women including farmers and small business owners to build their own income generating activities. We are using an approach of 'creating Game Changers’ who can help in replicating of values and knowledge in their communities to challenge traditional power structures and give women and girls an environment to thrive.

In the process of working with women , we realize how most of them do not believe in their abilities and life potential. They have been locked in the past and their minds set to believe what society has told them about themselves. The norms are so ingrained such that, these women end up in so much self sabotage and being in conflict with one another. It is said that, once a tree grows bigger, it becomes difficult to prune it or change the way it should grow.

In this way, we realize that, early interventions to changing social norms and gender stereotypes that constrain the women is very important.

In November 2024, we made an appeal to friends and well wishers to support our girls initiative which we call ‘Educating Game Changer’.

We had kind response from friends in Canada who did a dinner fundraising party in support of our first activity for the initiative.  The funds raised enabled us to purchase sanitary towels for a first batch of 120 girls in Solai area of Nakuru County,

Kenya. We had  different groups in 2 villages attending our menstrual hygiene awareness event. We used the events not only to distribute the sanitary towels but also raise awareness of various issues around menstrual hygiene and sexual and reproductive health. The turn out was surprisingly good and we took time to celebrate with the girls as it was during the Christmas holiday . We shared experiences with them and enjoyed a cup of juice and biscuits. Seeing their gratitude and enthusiasm for knowledge and support was truly humbling.

Some things which most people take for granted like accessing enough sanitary towels, clean water to wash hands and a clean toilet are privileges that most girls in rural communities don’t get easily. During our events, girls shared their experiences and challenges which they have to face and overcome once they reach puberty. Most of them live in families where even their mothers cannot talk about menstruation or anything around sexuality.

These girls have to get information from their peers who also have inadequate information. Sadly, some even confessed that they have to borrow sanitary towels from their friends or use improvised materials like old clothes during menstruation just because they can’t ask their parents to buy them. These challenges are rooted both in social norms as well as poverty as sanitary supplies are very costly in Kenya. The school curriculum at the moment also don’t provide exclusive information on sexual and reproductive health and the teachers may mention in passing. These girls therefore, and surprisingly, are still very shy when matters of menstruation or sexuality are discussed in public. A good number of them were also learning for the first time how to use sanitary towels appropriately including how to dispose them. Most of them confessed to having been given misleading information by peers sometimes.

We are privileged to having met a volunteer from Corps Africa who joined us for the events and became very instrumental in running the demonstration of proper use of sanitary towels and a few areas of sexual and reproductive health . She is going to be our partner in the coming months when we are planning to have holiday camps in April and August during school breaks.

We intend to hold sessions with comprehensive education on different areas that will help the girls live more empowered lives. The participants are girls from the ages of 9-24 years since we are targeting school going ages from primary school to post secondary. 

The areas that we identified for capacity building of the girls include reproductive health, personal health and hygiene, self awareness and expression, success in education, and career development. The volunteer will assist with developing the workshops as well as training in some of the topics.

We also intend to incorporate more mentors and role models to assist in the sessions. During the events we had older women from the community taking up sessions to talk to the girls and also peers who are doing well in various ways especially higher education.

The volunteer will work especially with the girls who are out of school to develop the peer mentoring model which we hope will continue past the holiday camps. We are also continuing with resource mobilization to get more sanitary supplies to distribute throughout the year and hopefully, make it a sustained effort to help the girls both in school and at home.

In the long term, we also hope to make it a support with other necessities that keep girls in school including books, stationaries, uniforms, school fees and any other needs as identified by the community. This initiative is more than just distribution of sanitary supplies but a concerted effort to make sure girls in these rural communities are in positions to get education.

Most of them don’t go beyond primary school once parents cannot afford school supplies. Many more don’t access post secondary education and never get to build careers because they aren’t a priority in their families and communities.

We hope that as we take the baby steps to build the initiative, more well-wishers will join us to make it grow and impact more girls in this community and spread to more communities in Kenya . We also hope that it will become a life changing initiative that will turn the fortunes of most of the girls who have very little hope to get support from their families in building better lives for themselves. These girls are the Game Changers who will lead the communities out of poverty and other discrimination and help the country reach the targets of SDGS.