RESCUE 10,000 KENYAN GIRLS AT RISK OF HORRIFIC FGM

EMPOWERING GIRLS WITH EDUCATION

The woman is the caretaker of the home and family members. Her role is restricted to mainly bringing up children, and performing entire house hold chores such as collecting firewood, fetching water and observing cleanliness. Their role is so domesticated that they actually do construct their own houses. The women are kitchen gardeners as they do not have any right in determining the various uses for the piece of land. They do oversee the grazing of the livestock but have no say on deciding how to economically dispose off the livestock. However, they are allowed to sell farm produce and milk. Such are the expected paths of life of all girls who grow up in this community. Little wonder Kilgoris has few lady professionals since they do not go through schooling up to tertiary level. As soon as a girl attains 11 to 13 years of age she goes through Female Genital Mutilation and married off immediately, most probably, in a polygamous set up in exchange of an average seven cows. By the age of 15 years, the girl is not only a wife but also a mother.

Cherish Others expresses gratitude for the support of Global Giving Community. The project was able to reach out to 50 girls and all of their parents. This was a commendable achievement for the partnership which aims at changing the attitudes of the community members so that the community can regard the girl child as an equal to the boy child and therefore give her as much attention as possible.

There is need to empower girls with education and nurture them to acquire skills and knowledge to attain self actualization. The empowered girls exhibited great yearning for more and more knowledge. It was apparent that as days went by their morale and self confidence were greatly and positively enhanced.

• GROUP OF BENEFICIARIES AT AN EMPOWERMENT SEMINAR (RTF)