Empower and Educate WISER girls in rural Kenya

WISER's multipurpose hall is bustling with activity.

It's a Friday evening and over 200 girls are gathered in teams, huddled over tables, discussing the critical issues in their community of Muhuru Bay, Kenya. One group mentions a sexual and reproductive health training session coming up soon, another talks about the recent international visitors to campus and when they might come again. And in the background - as far back in the room as you can go - a separate team is also bustling: WISER's kitchen staff. 

The title of "unsung hero" suits the WISER kitchen staff well. On a supremely active campus, they often take a backseat to the constant academic grind and the busy day-in day-out programs that the WISER girls love so much. But in this region of Kenya, thousands of girls are forced to leave school because of food insecurity. Lack of nutritious meals at home and at school leads to students who are distracted by hunger, youth who are ill or malnourished, and, ultimately, girls who are not set up for success. 

It is in that environment that, over the last 9 years, the WISER kitchen staff has served nearly 700,000 meals to girls on campus. They are the driving force behind keeping girls healthy and fed. They are the stewards of girls' wellness. They turn WISER's on-campus sustainable garden into a source of energy and stability for hundreds of young women. And despite spending most of their time tucked away in the kitchens, they are as critical of an intervention for the girls of Muhuru Bay as the teachers that stand at the front of our WISER classrooms.

To the WISER team, this is what it means to offer a truly holistic intervention for girls: that while you, as a generous WISER supporter, provide essential medicines and textbooks and safe housing, you also provide the leafy green vegetables that were chopped that Friday evening. Together, our supporters and our kitchen staff are the reason that a girl sitting in a university-quality lab under solar-powered lights is focused on her chemistry homework and not her growling stomach. 

Unsung heroes, indeed.

It is an honor to celebrate that bustling team in the back of the WISER hall. And it's an honor to celebrate you, as a supporter of WISER's work. Thank you for being one of the heroes that keeps girls thriving!

Imagine that you are a young woman who grew up in Muhuru Bay. You've hoped, for most of your life, that you would be one of the few girls who finishes school and goes on to a college degree. Now, after four years of living and learning at WISER, you've done it - you've become the first woman in your family to earn a college acceptance.

This is an exciting moment! You've beaten the odds and you deserve celebration and joy and, luckily, your fast-approaching graduation will certainly provide that! But beyond graduation lies a set of new challenges. What will your classmates be like? Your teachers? And perhaps most importantly, will you be prepared to excel in college as you have in high school?

The WISER team is happy to share that we have been working tirelessly to support our alumni during their transitions into college. This month, we are providing a particularly exciting, high-demand opportunity to all of our most recent alumni: a month-long intensive course designed to build digital literacy.

This course, designed to smooth the transition for WISER alumni heading into their college studies, was made possible through our partnership with Lumen Labs; a social enterprise based in Nairobi working to make computer education accessible for hard-to-reach communities. Lumen Labs does this by providing hands-on courses that are designed to not only teach critical computer skills, but to identify and solve community challenges while learning those skills.

Throughout the month-long course, WISER alumni will be trained in data collection methods via computer-based lessons. The recent graduates will take these lessons and put them into practice by surveying girls in Muhuru Bay who have dropped out of high school in order to better understand the challenges girls face in their area. After the data is collected, WISER alumni will use digital tools in our computer lab to analyze the information they collect and to build their confidence in using various software programs.

In the end, you have girls who are both prepared for increased computer use at the collegiate level and ready to apply multiple skills in their eventual jobs.

Shanny, a WISER alumni who recently completed the course, shared that it not only helped her build computer skills, it helped her think critically about issues in her community. "We did surveys, and one problem we identified was lack of school fees among youth," said Shanny. "We had several ways to solve the problem, like involving donors and lobbying the government to offer free education." 

Creative problem-solving to address locally-identified challenges like these is emphasized throughout girls’ four years at WISER, and we are proud to provide opportunities, like the Lumen Labs course, for our alumni to continue learning and growing after they graduate.

Of course, opportunities like this one are only possible through the support of our partners and inspiring donors on GlobalGiving. Thank you for continuing to build WISER success stories each and every year with your generous gifts.

You are helping us create long-term change for hundreds of truly special young women, even after they graduate from WISER!

Links:

• Learn more about our partner, Lumen Labs!