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!