Eradicate all forms of inequalities through Sports

I hope you are all doing well and keeping Safe wherever you are.

Just to begin with, we have had a wonderful time with Children in the field but not as much it is supposed to be in the work plan. The school Calendar has been disrupted because of Covid-19, many Children have either dropped out of school because of school fees or they are in the rural.

Another challenge is that the government through the ministry of education has given all teachers an ultimatum for all of them to be vaccinated by 24^th of August, these has led to many Children missing classes because there are no teachers in school, which technically makes Children to miss after school football sessions. But the situation will improve as we move a long because of vaccination is being rolled out in different places in Nairobi.

As far as community impact program is concerned, it has been a good feeling to see Children again in the field playing again and relieving stress that they are going through at this time. We are now working with a small group of participants compared to the previous years, we have ensured that there are hand washing stations, thermos guns and sanitizers an indicated by the ministry of health.

One the finding during monitoring and evaluation is the decreasing number of girls in the sessions, the decrease is coming from schools especially adolescent girls “many of these girls are helping their parents at home, to cook for the young ones as their parents go out to do manual work to feed the family”, said Mrs. Veronica of Brains wealth. This is just but one case on 4 schools that we are working with in Mukuru Slums.

As a community Coach, I feel for Children who are living these communities, there are situations that need more intervention to be able to support pupils to go to school, at times we ask ourselves whether to buy soap for washing hands or buy food, or pay for school feel. These has been one of the difficult moment in the lives on many young people who are leaving in challenging environments.

We would like to thank all of you for your support during these interesting times, through your support we have been able to keep these Children closer be giving them moral and psychological support to live one day at time. We are optimistic that as the vaccine become more and more available, it will ease the burden that the whole community is going through and eventually bring back the tranquility in our lives.

Time flies, the first quarter of the year has just elapsed, we have faced insurmountable challenges but our tenacity and resiliency has proved that tough times never lasts but tough people do and you are one of them.

We have had different kinds  of moments that came as a result Coronavirus pandemic, Green-Kenya community coaches begun community impact program  in February with an array of hope that they year will be different than the previous one, we had a total of 147 Children across three community schools and conducted 20 sessions. This was one of the lowest numbers of participants that we have worked with for the last 3 years. Something which is surprising is that girls were few during these sessions with about 45%.

Some of these girls were at hope helping their parents to cook and help in taking care of their sibblings while their male counterparts were in school. Many Children were either stuck in the rural home because their parents lost their jobs, these parents could not afford putting food on the table leave alone taking their Children to school any more. Some of the parents were scared to let their Children attend the sessions. I have witnessed many of these parents at their weakest moments during these pandemic not mentioning how emotional and uncertain of what is going to happen next.

Despite all these challenges, we have put a brave face while we were not sure what is going to happen next, many Children have experienced stressful moments especially during lockdown, just in case you are not aware of these, our program is taking place in Nairobi which the capital city, which is one of the most affect counties and just recently, the President had announced the secession of movement in and out of Nairobi, the good news is that the ban has been lifted, we are now looking forward to begin our sessions after reviewing  Covid-19 protocols with youth leaders, physical education teachers and the stakeholders who are engaged in sport for development.

Having said that, Our community coaches have been going through a refresher training on how Children learn, the training is a bit different from the normal sessions where the coaches use cones and balls, it is about how to capture the attention of Children, different kind of learner, values and identity, values from Olympism and the biggest elephant in the room which is Safe guarding and Protecting Children participating in sports. The lessons are being conducted by one of our Board member Cliff Parry, who has over 30 years in education and working with Children.

I am looking forward to see the adrenaline of these girls once we go back to the field again, this moment will be one of its kind, Thank you for your big heart even during one of the challenging moments in our life time, we are in this together and this is the message that we will pass to the girls when we resume.

To all of you, we say “Asante sana”  / Thank you very much

Links:

• Green-Kenya website
• Instagram Page

07th/01/21 Nairobi Kenya

Happy New Year 2021

This story was written by our Kick and Conserve schools coordinator Mr. Silwe, and i am happy to share it with you all.

Menstruation is a positive indicator that a girl is maturing and has potential of being fertile. A good step in the life of one day being a mother to either a girl or a boy. The others will follow; you know grandmother foster mother – can breast feed another child from another mother when in distress.

But the menstrual flow can be a disaster. Even the eve of it, if not well prepared can traumatize. I have seen this many times, especially in school environment. More so, if the community has added some taboo inclination to it. We have to prepare, prepare and talk about it and openly to potential girls that it can happen to them. My view is that it is better done when fellow girls talk to their fellows as they interact in games, discussions and even when they walk home together from school.

As a father of many girls; three to be precise, the boys are only two, I feel for them and want to help them and want to help all girls. They should be empowered to afford to get their shield (Cheap pads – homemade) we want re- usable sanitary pads, made by themselves. We want girls to design their own re- usable sanitary pads so that they do not have to worry at all.

We do not want girls to coin excuse to borrow money from taxi operators (bodaboda) hence take advantage and “defile” them. We want to counsel them not to blindly opt for “trendy” factory made where as they can make them by themselves.

We do not want them to stay away from school, games, and now that FIFA has allowed them to play even if on periods. The good news is that it only happens three to four days in a month, that is 4/30 > 0.13% days a month. Very minimal, can’t wait to see our project kick off especially in our rural and informal settlements.

I would like to support a better community for a better cause with my knowledge to wasichana Juu program that is being championed by from Green-Kenya.

No excuse for not playing”, “No excuse for not interacting,” “No excuse for no being busy”.

Links:

• Green-Kenya website

September 15^th 2020

We are super excited to reach out to you during these interesting times.

As you are all aware, all our on-field and out of school programs were abruptly stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this has made it strenuous to even meet with Girls Up leaders, Kenya and especially Nairobi has registered high number of teenage pregnancies and Child abuse because of restriction of movement and night curfews.

But there is a ray of hope, the restriction of movement has now been lifted and Wasichana Juu leaders can move freely and meet with the girls on a one on one basis, there are still some hindrances, the leaders can only move within their locality because they can walk and have mentorship sessions with the girls but they cannot use any mode of transportation because they cannot afford it at the moment.

Having said that, Wasichana Juu, Girls Up leaders have been having their discussion virtually, the discussions have been revolving around supporting each other during Covid-19 pandemic by checking on each other before they can reach out to the girls that they are mentoring because you have to be in the right mind before you can extend the same to somebody else a helping hand.

These discussions were led by Miriam Wambui who is the founder of “Maendeleo Mtaa”, a Swahili word for “developing the community.” And The Pollination Project fellow offered her expertise in working with teenage girls in the informal settlement. “as people who work with girls, we have to constantly build ourselves. This means learning, exposing yourself to different learning platform, have mentors to help you develop yourself. You cannot give what you do not have; our girls look up to us. Our role as girl’s mentors is to pave way and create spaces for them and follow our footsteps” Said Miriam.

The discussions are still going on with specific action points that each leaders should work on before we can resume our sessions in the community. These virtual discussion will help the girls  to grow, learn and work together as a family that takes care of each other.

My name is Zipporah, I joined Wasichana Juu / Girls Up in January 2020, and I thought I should share my first-time experience at the sessions with you!!

My first experience with the girls was an interesting one, I got to meet and interact with the girls, they are a jovial lot and a very welcoming one as well, and they are a family that is sure everyone would like to be part of. 

I introduced myself to them on the first day of the session and we afterward talked about hygiene. They talked about the individual challenges that they go through, for instance, a few said that due to the water shortage in their area they are not able to bathe daily, others said due to financial strains they are not able to have enough pairs of socks for school, hence they redo them up to three days. Others said they had to cut their hair since they are not able to maintain cleanliness just to mention a few. We then discussed a few workable remedies like at least washing their pairs of socks every day from school and let them dry overnight instead of redoing them, we also said if there isn’t enough water, they could at least wash their hair monthly and ensure that during the month the hair is nicely combed or plaited and finally try to at least bathe daily whenever they could. As it is said cleanliness is closer to Godliness. It was a short session but I really enjoyed spending time with the girls and looked forward to meeting them again.

The next meeting was to celebrate the International women’s day which we did on the 7th of March. It was one beautiful sunny day, our spirits were high and we all looked forward to having a wonderful time. We had it all planned out I must say, we through purposeful play games that made us celebrate and appreciate ourselves as women. We played three games and after each, I asked the girls questions and had discussions at length, with the aim of empowering the girls on gender equality. I totally loved the girls’ response; you could tell they wanted to be competitive women in the society both now and in the future. I am looking forward to seeing a great improvement in the girls both in their confidence and attitude towards life, as time goes by as we keep spending more time with the girls and continue helping to curve a positive self-image, enable them to develop the ability to think critically and ensure they have equal participation in decision making whether it is in the family or at the community level through the Girls Up program.

A woman’s worth is something that all women are born with and it places a status on how we should be treated, without knowing your worth, you luck the motivation to be treated how you should be treated. This, I would tell all women and most definitely the girls.