During incidences of violence, local leaders and duty bearers such as chiefs, village elders, nyumba kumi heads, community health volunteers, community health practitioners and religious leaders are normally the first respondents to whom survivors seek services and advice. However most of these duty bearers lack the requisite knowledge and skills to adequately respond to survivors and offer appropriate referrals, this ultimately contributing to nature and quality of the management services offered. This may also impact whether and how the cases are litigated and justice realised.
In this quarter, we held a 3-day training to 30 such stakeholders from Homabay County, covering topics such as the first response services, the available referral pathways, roles of different duty bearers, litigation process, provisions of various anti-violence laws, organisations offering various survivor-centred and support services among others.
We believe that the training adequately equipped the stakeholders and that its benefits will transcend to survivors being served better and getting the justice they deserve.
As always, we are immensely grateful for the donations we continue to receive through the GlobalGiving platform.
Lack of comprehensive sexuality education is one of the key challenges adolescents face that eventually contribute to their poor health outcomes such as high rates of teen pregnancies, spontaneous abortions, early marriage, unplanned parenthood, increase in sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS among others.
In continuation of the last report we did on education, this period we educated our beneficiaries, more so those who are out of school, on key aspects of their sexual reproductive health, covering topics such as sexual gender based violence, contraceptives, importance of pre-natal and post-natal care and menstrual health management. The education sessions were for both boys and girls, this based on the premise that boys too need to be helped to demystify the myths and misconceptions around girls’ sexuality to be able to understand how to support their mothers, wives, sisters and other community members. The sessions created safe and interactive areas where adolescent girls and boys talked freely on issues affecting them.
We also had one-on-one sessions where the adolescents asked the program officer their personal questions, issues for advice and counselling.
We continue to be grateful for the GlobalGiving donations – the girls are happy and by extension, NIGEE is happy.
Kenyans, more so those from economically disadvantaged families that we target with our interventions, continue to feel the effects of COVID-19. This is made worse by the current global economic environment, also experienced in Kenya, characterised by high inflation rates that have drastically reduced purchasing power - for example, the price of a 2kg of maize flour has increased by 38.6% to Kshs. 208, the highest in history. To make matters worse, the school calendar for 2022 has four school terms, each term requiring payment of school fees, learning materials and personal effects, this further straining the low disposable income. As a consequence, parents prioritise basic needs with education, especially of adolescent girls and young women, being treated as secondary. Many girls are therefore at-risk of dropping out of school and this will likely contribute to high teen pregnancies, early marriage, increase in age disparate relationships, increase in transactional sex, financial dependence on men exposing young girls to sexual gender based violence among other societal ills.
As a mitigation measure, we collated GlobalGiving donations received between April – June 2022 and used them to pay school fees for a few girls who would have otherwise not reported for their second schooling term.
We express immense gratitude to our donors who continue us to support in meeting our objectives and serving
In any activity, security is key and mandatory, especially when the services to be offered include those of rescuing gender based violence survivors. A better fence is the first step towards this, not only because it defines the centre’s boundaries but it also limits access to the compound – keeping away alleged perpetrators.
NIGEE used part of the funds received from GlobalGiving in the last quarter to erect a better fence for the Girls' Empowerment Centre. Even though the fence is not the ideal yet, the differences as depicted in the side by side photos attached, is clear and the beneficiaries are forever grateful.
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NIGEE has always had a dream to set up a Girls’ Empowerment Centre to be a one-stop shop for all girl-empowerment activities, i.e. to house a vocational training centre; an employment bureau, a bridging/transition centre, an early childhood education centre and a rescue centre.
The vocational training centre and the early childhood education centre sections are functional. We are offering courses on hairdressing, beauty therapy, fashion and design and basic computer skills. Girls who have children below school-going are allowed to come with them at the centre, where the children are cared for while their mothers are at school. In addition, the children are offered nutritious porridge at no extra cost – thanks to donations from GlobalGiving.
We continue to fundraise to ensure the other components of the Girls’ Empowerment Centre come to fulfilment.
To the GlobalGiving team and all our donors, thank you so much for immensely contributing towards the realisation of our dream.
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