By Keely Bicknell | Fundraising & Communications Officer
Dear friends and supporters,
Your ongoing generosity has uplifted hundreds of girls and young women in Kenya, as they build their paths out of poverty and exploitation. We’re so excited to share the successes of the past few months at our Seed of Hope training centres, that your support has made possible.
This year so far we have enrolled 375 young women, 93 of whom are young mothers.
5 of those young women are enrolled in Electrical Wiring & Installation (EWI) and are coming to the end of their courses, and another 5 are enrolled in Motor Vehicle Mechanics.
Below are some lovely photos of current EWI Seed of Hope students, including shots of the young women keenly learning alongside their male classmates. We are so passionate about smashing gender norms and encouraging girls and young women to study whatever excites them the most! If young women are to break cycles of poverty and exploitation, they must be supported to ignore harmful gender stereotypes!
Clean water for the Kangweni community
We are thrilled to share that we now have the funds needed to build a 240m deep borehole at our Seed of Hope Kangweni centre!
The borehole will provide Seed of Hope students, plus 200 people in the local community, with an easy-to-reach, safe, clean, water source. Our goal is to eventually use the water to create a demonstration farm for agribusiness training for 300 local community members per year, enabling adaptation to changing climate conditions, improved food security and income!
What’s key is this clean water source will particularly benefit women and girls. Kangweni (Kitui county) is a remote, semi-arid area increasingly experiencing massive crop failure due to unpredictable rainfall and climate shocks of severe drought and flash floods. 40% of people are living below the food poverty line, and women and girls walk up to 10km to access clean and affordable water, limiting their education and employment opportunities.
A new kitchen, built on collaboration
We are proud and grateful that a brand new kitchen facility in our Seed of Hope Kangweni centre has just been built, ready to be used to cook nutritious free lunches for studying girls and young women. Soon, our partner NGO in Kenya hope to create a brand new Catering and Hospitality course at our centre in Kangweni too; these future students will use the new kitchen to learn to cook delicious meals, training to become caterers and chefs of the future!
Young mothers want to learn too - introducing Mary
Mary is a recent Hair & Beauty graduate from Seed of Hope Kariti. Incredibly, she became pregnant during her studies, but did not drop out. With support from the team at Seed of Hope, she continued her classes and then sat (and passed!) her exams while heavily pregnant.
Now a proud mother, Mary wants to set up her own salon, so she can support herself and her family.
Thank you for standing with young women and girls in Kenya - we are so grateful for your support!
With love and gratitude,
Keely and the team
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