By Mansi Kotak | Co-Founder & CEO
Dear Donor,
Greetings from warm and sunny Kisumu.
Thank you for your continued support to our project! In our last report we shared with you the work we started with the first cohort of Junior Secondary Students of Central Primary School, the selection of two former beneficiaries of the program into the Scholarship Program and RKF’s GlobalGiving Badges. You can read that full report here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/empower-and-educate-the-girls-of-rural-kisumu/reports/?subid=204049.
In this report we share an update from our scholars Mary and Naomi as promised in the last report. We will also provide an update of the continued work we are doing with the girls of Central Primary School in Nyalenda and the impact of the Meals Program for mums in the current environment of economic distress in Kenya.
Scholars’ Update
In our last report we shared the launch of the new Scholarship Fund created to support students’ transition from primary to secondary school.
We held our first Scholars’ Workshop during the term school break. During the intensive workshop, all the scholars shared their experience of their first term in high school. Through the workshop we were able to provide the scholars with training on setting SMART goals, intention setting and time management to help them with the challenges of transitioning from primary to secondary school. This was followed by a team work challenge designed to help them build their collaborative working skills. In this challenge, they built a 3D model of the Sydney Opera House in less than 1 hour.
Two of our scholars this year are past beneficiaries of the Sanitary Pads Program and had previously attended the Girls Empowerment Workshops. Mary and Naomi are both doing really well at their respective schools and are using the training they received during past Girls Empowerment Workshop to care for themselves while at school.
Girls Empowerment Workshops
The core aspect of this project is to empower girls with Sanitary Pad kits whilst ensuring they (and their mothers) receive high quality menstrual health and hygiene training. We continue to reach even more girls with this program. Since our last update we have reached an additional 158 beneficiaries of this program, 79 of whom are students of Junior Secondary School who have received a Sanitary Pad kit which consists of re-usable pads, soap, panties, toilet paper, a girl talk booklet and a bucket.
Impact of the Meals Program
Since our last update in April 2023, we have served an additional 41,200 meals and crossed the milestone of serving 700,000 meals since we started this program back in 2016. You can read the full report for this on the Main project page by clicking here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/give-hope-to-kisumus-underprivileged-children/reports/#menu
All mothers and female guardians who attended the Girls Empowerment Workshops also received small food packs to support their families in a time when food prices have shot up quite drastically.
Gratitude Network Fellowship
Earlier this month, the Rahul Kotak Foundation (RKF) and its Co-Founder and CEO Mansi Kotak were selected as a 2023 Gratitude Network Fellow out of over 1,500 applicants. The fellowship is a year-long program that will help RKF scale up its work to be able to reach even more students living in marginalized communities.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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