Safe futures - self-reliance for 675 Kenyan girls

“Seed of Hope is the best place for me because I have the opportunity to get skills free of charge, learning materials and a good meal at lunch time!” Annet says as we sat down during our one on one conversation. It is through these kinds of interactions that we get to learn more about the background of each student who enrols at Seed of Hope. We build good rapports with our students so they feel able to approach us whenever they have an issue that might affect their training while at Seed of Hope. Annet comes from a polygamous family and has six siblings. Her mother was a single parent when she got married as a second wife when Annet was 7 years old. Life was not easy for Annet in her new family as she was expected not only to carry out house chores after school but also sell groundnuts on the streets in order to get money for the family since she was treated as the outsider. This caused her to perform poorly at the end of primary education exams hence her home and dreams of joining high school were shattered. She said that her parents could not even afford to pay for her school fees in the local day school much as she had pleaded with them.

In 2017, Annet’s older brother brought her to Nairobi to help him in house chores as his wife was about to have a baby. For the two years after completing primary school, Annet has been living with her brother helping out around the house. One day she went to a salon and the lady who does her hair asked whether she was interested in getting some skills in hair or fashion design. The hair dresser had heard about Seed of Hope after we moved in to the new community and thought it would benefit a young girl like Annet. This news excited Annet and she shared with her brother who was very supportive of the idea of getting vocational skills. They came to inquire about Seed of Hope and eventually, Annet was enrolled in dressmaking, fashion and design course.

Teacher Florence who is in charge of the dressmaking class says that Annet’s self-esteem was very low when she came but through the empowerment programme for the young girls her attitude, confidence and self- esteem improved significantly and more so she has improved in her course work as well. Annets’s plan for the future is to find employment in the textile industry in order to become independent but also support her parents , educate her younger siblings to the level of education they would have wanted.

Seed of Hope has come a long way in transforming the lives of girls like Annet who were once hopeless and unsure what the future holds for them because of poverty in the family. The skills imparted to our students not only focus on vocational courses but business enterprise, life skills, and mentorship and many other empowerment programmes. All this is geared towards giving them hope; dignity and opportunity to be confident, creative and self-driven in order to become self-reliant so as to raise their living standards and that of their families.

In addition, Raising Futures Kenya provides a platform where students can share their views, opinion and concerns regarding their time at Seed of Hope. Through focused group discussions that is ongoing across the Seed of hope centres, our students now have the opportunity to inform the organization on how best they can be supported to achieve their goal but also how we can improve the Seed of Hope programme.

The girls also celebrated World Menstruation Day on 28 May by expressing their gratitude to Seed of Hope programme for the provision of sanitary towels. Majority of our girls confessed that due to poverty, their parents cannot afford to buy them a packet of sanitary towel hence forced to find other alternatives .It is through your donations that our girls receive this essential commodity in order to keep them in school during that time of the month but also protect them from men who lure and take advantage of their lack of money to buy.

Thank you for your continuing support because it is through your generous giving towards Seed of Hope that has made it possible for the girls like Annet to raise their confidence, self-esteem through the opportunity given to them so as to have a bright and promising future.  We believe that girls at Seed of Hope have potential to live independent and successful lives through employment or self-employment.

Each New Year at Seed of Hope begins with a flurry of activity as our teaching team work hard to enrol new students. Since January when Seed of Hope resumed learning, we have enrolled 116 girls to acquire vocational skills in the courses of their choice. Each course also now has a mandatory computing course so that all students are fully equipped to fit into the job market with complete confidence. The enrolment process is facilitated by our work in the community through our outreach programme that is run by Seed of Hope staff in the communities surrounding our centres. They help us to identify and build relationships with disadvantaged girls in the community in order to prepare them for enrolment at Seed of Hope.

January was an exciting month as we also celebrated our Nairobi graduation. This was the 14th graduation since the implementation of Seed of Hope in 2002. The graduation event took place in our new Seed of Hope premises and it attracted a lot of people as the community had never witnessed such an event. The parents and guardians also showed up in larger numbers to witness their girls being crowned and issued with a certificate in their course of study. We had plenty of guests come to celebrate including our new chair of trustees from the UK who had been visiting our projects to see and learn what we do at the grass root level. He also had the opportunity to interact with our beneficiaries, staff, graduates and other stakeholders during his time with us.

During the graduation celebration I spoke with Caroline. She comes from a humble family of three siblings. Her mother is the sole breadwinner of a huge family of cousins, uncles and aunts who all live together. Caroline struggled to earned her secondary education certificate as her mother worked to provide the basic necessities for the family. After her secondary education, she stayed idle at home for 2 years as her mother could not afford to pay for her college. She was in the state of hopelessness when a preacher from their village informed them about the Seed of Hope centre, meaning in 2017 Caroline joined the dressmaking, fashion & fabric design course.

In her two years of skills training, Caroline was ranked among the best students who showed great improvement and interest to her coursework. She then went for attachment at Nairobi Textile Business Centre, one of the biggest textile industries within the city. At first it was a challenge to commute every day from home to the city, but her mother and siblings supported her with bus fare and a few extra coins for lunch. Her boss was that impressed by her hard work that they began to refer clients to her, sent her to get supplies of materials and deliver products to clients in different places. At the end of the day, Caroline would be given some pocket money which motivated her to learn new designs. During the presentation of their project at the graduation, we were overwhelmed by the beautiful pieces of clothes she had made as she brought her graduation gown as well as 4 other gowns for the models who were showcasing her beautiful collections.

All of Caroline’s family came to the graduation to celebrate her accomplishment. I noticed a few of her family members were dressed up in nice African Kitenge designs so I took the opportunity to inquire where they were made and I could not believe it when Caroline’s older sister said that Caroline had made all their clothes. Her mother who was so proud had this to say, “Today I am the happiest mother on earth because I can finally see the seed that was planted in my daughter. I would like to thank Seed of Hope and everyone involved in making this project a success.” Caroline’s family, friends and neighbours could not hide their joy as they asked me to take photos of them. The best news is that up to date, Caroline is still working at Nairobi textile and she plans to save enough to establish her business within the same location as she has built a client base.

I would like to sincerely thank you for supporting young girls like Caroline who had lost hope in life and through your generous donations towards the Seed of Hope programme, she is now living a happy life, dreaming to achieve greater things. Thank you for allowing us to equip and empower these young girls with relevant skills that give them hope, dignity and opportunity to be employed or self – employed becoming self-reliant and able to raise the standards of living for their families.