Transforming destinies, One Girl at a time!

A couple of years back we had started an initiative Tumakinike Trust with the sole aim of assisting girls and women who were facing diverse challenges with GBV/Sexual Reproductive Health Rights issues. Two to three years later Covid happened and yes things aligned - how you would ask; the numbers recorded of Gender Based Violence and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights issues had hit an all-time high rate of concern not just in the local community but further of national concern in the wake of femicide being declared a national disaster.

We then set up an initiative 'Tunaweza Project' which loosely translated from Swahili means 'We can do it - Project'. Why Tunaweza we noted a gap in knowledge and sexual rights self-awareness in both girls and young women. Our project was then to bridge the knowledge gap through our capacity building and training initiatives in identified informal settings and rural communities.

Our objective had to be succinctly clear for each identified group.

Homa Bay was supper special, poverty rates and child led homes having been clearly noted.

Our Objective - Provision of Sanitary Towels and knowledge enhancement on Sexual Reproductive Health.

Our Goal - Impacting every goal within Homa Bay County (1,000,000) girls

Time Period - 18 months, going to our seventh month of target

Actions to be taken - Co-ordination on the training dates for each sub-county/Team facilitation and training/Collaboration and fundraising for sanitary towels

Intended Impact - Mental Transformation & Social Re-engineering on aspects of Sexual Reproductive Health Rights and Gender Based Violence

Happy to report we did a whooping 800+ girls in our first session during the first quarter of the year and the response was you should have come sooner and please make a return visit.

Our approach was slightly different - we had the normal presentation and later incorporated small group chats, use of talents such music and drawing + personal pitching sessions to further draw out leadership in addition to the knowledge enhancement.

We established a register to continue tracking the progress of each girl and evaluate the progress made in the different classifications using the basics of ABC - Abstain, Be Consistent Chill and continue to follow through in other parts of the country as well.

My heart almost always skips a beat at every session because hey you get to realize you are positively impacting young people while having fun at it - the questions they ask ......all are answered in the best way possible nothing is ever trivial or underestimated.

These are future mothers in the making!

Would definitely love to here from all our sisters what other innovative approaches they use in their communities with girls and women on GBV/SRHR

Adios!