By Joy Christabell | Project Coordinator
In Kenya, there has been a really high spike in the rate of teenage pregnancies. This accounts for girls between ages 10-17 mostly. This has been facilitated by many factors such as the continuing closure of schools. Most of the teenage girls in the local slums are from impoverished families that lost their means of survival with the pandemic; they are hence easily lured for basic needs. Other girls are victims of predators living in their homes while their guardians are away, as more unsupervised kids were left to do as they wish.
As an organization that strives to empower and build women who are leaders of tomorrow, we decided to launch a campaign dubbed "LINDA BINTI' under the #stopteenpregnancy, to address the issue. 'Linda Binti' is a swahili word that translates to 'protect our daughters'. The aim is to ensure that our girls do not become teen moms and are able to return to school. For the young girls who are already pregnant, we can only giude and counsel them so that when they have weaned their young ones, they may be able to resume school.
Our campaign works in three ways, the first point is where we talk to the teen girls and mentor them, as we train them to be future leaders. The second point invloves distributing dignity packs to these young girls, as we teach them about hygiene. Currently, each dignity pack contains; 5 re usable pads (for long period use), 3 undrepants, soap, a toothb rush and toothpaste. The young girls are also taught how to use, clean and maintain their re usable pads.
On the third way, we have been seeking to bring our male counterparts to the table to help us in this fight. We have been training them on the plight of the girl child, as well as the consequences of prying on young girls. We have also been training them to identify predators in the community, hence protecting our daughters from this vice.
We have been able to reach many girls in different localities in the country, and we aspire to reach as many girls as we can and equip them with dignity packs, as well as to recruit many more ambassadors of change of all genders.
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