By Pamela Ateka | Project Leader
Project Summary
Teenage pregnancy and subsequent motherhood presents a major challenge to a girl child who has no social support from family, friends and the community. Community Focus Group (CFG) believed in the future of these girls and developed a program to identify and empower the most vulnerable teen mothers in Kenya. As an organization we aim to offer these young mothers access to education and economic empowerment through training and skills building. Several of the young girls in Kenya have conceived as a result of rape or sexual violence among other circumstances. Community Focus Group agenda is to offer these girls a chance to rewrite their future free of judgment or condemnation. The goal of the project is to equip the young girls with skills and expertise to enable them to earn a living and change their live and support their children.
The project target is to reach out to 100 teen mothers per county faced with high rate of teen pregnancy below the age of 19 years. The skill development training include and not limited to tailoring, baking/cooking, beads work, basketry, beauty and hair dressing, entrepreneurship training (they are instructed also on how to develop a business plan, start a business and save money) and back to school program option (they are provided with adult education, formal and non-formal education).
Homabay County
Regionally, statistics are worrying. According to the latest demographic health survey, 19.2 per cent of girls aged between 15 and 19 in HomaBay County have had a live birth already, while 22.2 per cent within that bracket have begun child bearing. In addition, contraception uptake among women aged 15 to 49 in the county is below average, at 46.7 per cent. While people aged between 15 and 19 are sexually active, their level of contraception, even for disease preventing measures such as condom use, is the lowest, at below five per Cent.Homabay County is ranked 2nd nationally after Narok County on high rate of teenage pregnancies. According to chiefs and other law enforcers, poverty and passive parenting make it difficult to effectively tackle teenage pregnancies and punish the people responsible for them. “No matter how much you threaten the girls, they will never reveal who made them pregnant” according to the chief views and observation.
100 Girls project Homabay cohort
Community Focus Group embarked on skill development training of 4 girls in Homabay County. The process of selection was done on the basis of their background story and needs assessment done per individual. The girls were given orientation on the main agenda of the program and joined the training on the 1st of March 2018 at Elegance hair dressing salon and end in 31st August. The training time frame was 6 month and the girls were taken through a practical training on Hair braiding, retouch, styling, dread locks, corn row plaiting, Wash and set, pricing, customer Etiquette. After the training the top 2 girls will be given an internship position in the same salon for two month to sharpen their skills further.
Impact of the project
Self esteem and awareness
When the girls joined the program they had very low self esteem due to the challenges they have faced all their life according to their person stories. All of them came from a single parent family (widowed mothers) and they all dropped out of school after getting pregnant. Their mothers don’t have a stable income to support their families and they have lived in poverty and had to do anything (selling elicit brew, farming others peoples land etc) to put food on the table. The experiences made them to lose confidence and hope. This project has enabled them to believe in themselves again, enhanced their self esteem and has given them an opportunity to showcase their gift and talents of hair dressing.
Interpersonal and communication skills
Majority of them came with very poor interpersonal and communication skills due to their upbringing or having to deal with the judgmental and psychological aspect in the society as teenage mothers coming from a vulnerable background. The project has helped them to improve on their life and positive thinking skills, personality development skills, management skills, behavioral skills, including job and employability skills.
Skill development
All the girls had no prior experience in hair dressing. The six month training has given the girls transformation from unskilled, unemployed girls to potential employees or even future employers. Above all it has given them hope as a means to earn a living and support their children and siblings.
Conclusion
Empowering girls and young women is not an ‘option’ for a modern society — it should have already happened a long time ago. This project has become an eye opener to young teenage mothers and their peers because it has given them hope and opportunity to explore their potential and become an example to their communities that their dreams are valid.
When you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a you educate a family (nation).Dr James Emmanuel Kwegy
Thank You So Much For your support! Please lets donate more to train 100 Girls!
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