Establish Girls' Empowerment Centre in Rural Kenya

To strengthen our girl-led leadership structure, we supported the Girls Steering Committee Chair and Secretary to attend and participate in the National Girl-up Leadership Summit held at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, Nairobi. This summit provided a vital platform for girls from diverse backgrounds to voice their perspectives on issues that matter to them. With sessions led by these young change-makers, the summit accentuated how crucial it is to place girls at the helm of leadership roles in initiatives that directly impact their lives and communities.

The young leaders shared their experiences in navigating challenges, at the initiatives they lead in, on issues such as access to education, sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), gender-based violence, teen pregnancies among others. Throughout the summit, the girls participated in strategy workshops, discussions on policy reforms and idea-sharing circles where they interacted with mentors and decision-makers. Their contributions, from shaping SRHR approaches to driving dialogues on safe spaces in education, brought out the depth of their vision and the practical strategies they bring to the table. This experience has inspired us to amplify their voices further by integrating their ideas into our organizational practices and advocacy strategies.

As we look forward, we remain dedicated to enhancing girl-centered leadership frameworks that allow young women to not only participate decision making in but also lead the change themselves.

Thank you for your continued support, we truly appreciate it.

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In keeping with the last quarter’s activity on sexual reproductive health and rights, this quarter we channelled our learnings and lessons learnt on meaningful involvement of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in their sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and supported the Girl-Led Projects’ Coordinator to draft and submit an abstract titled ‘An AGYW-centred approach to service provider capacity strengthening for enhanced uptake of sexual and reproductive health services among AGYW in Kisumu County’, to the 7th Reproductive Health Network Kenya (RHNK) annual Scientific Conference on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. The abstract was accepted and orally presented at the conference that was held from 18th to 21st JUNE 2024.

The abstract summarised how the dialogue circles and focus group discussions held with about 250 AGYW between November 2022 to October 2023 provided crucial information, from the girls’ perspective, on what girl-and-youth friendly services constitute and mean to them, as well as the challenges they face in accessing quality and affordable SRHR services. This information was collated and incorporated in a tool to assess the youth-friendliness of select health facilities in Homabay, Migori, Kisumu and Siaya counties. Additionally, the information was included in the tailor-made training to 80 health care workers from the identified health facilities on offering of accessible, affordable, available and quality SRHR services.

Post healthcare workers’ training, we are monitoring how SRHR services are offered to gauge the effectiveness of both the AGYW’s involvement and the healthcare worker’s training. We are also holding outreaches where AGYW are offered on-site SRHR services and/or referred to health facilities for further assistance, with the Sub Count Ministries of Health providing the necessary commodities.

Our case study is yet another proof that involving AGYW as key agents in provision of services that target and benefit them increases services’ acceptance and uptake. This model is easily replicable even in policy formulations

As always and on behalf of our beneficiaries, we are truly grateful to the GlobalGiving platform and our donors for always supporting us.

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