It’s been a while since “Sisterhood”
was actively doing mentorship in Schools within Nairobi and its environs. This
is majorly because your truly was back in class from May- October of this year
and it proved quite a challenge balancing school work, full time employment and
Sisterhood. Nonetheless I was still scribbling down thoughts and ideas
especially to help build teenage girls self esteem and help them gain
meaningful life skills. In all the deadlines and assignments, Sisterhood committed
to celebrating the International Day of the Girl Child in style.
The International day of the Girl
Child is an annual celebration marked on the 11th October. The day is
an international observance day as declared by the United Nations in the year
2012.The observation supports more opportunity
for girls, and increases awareness
of inequality faced by girls worldwide based upon
their gender. This inequality includes areas such as access to education, nutrition, legal rights,
medical care, and protection from discrimination,
violence and unfree child
marriage and access to education among others.
Since the day is for the girl child,
Sisterhood came up with an activity which is spearheaded by the girls and what
better way to do so than to hold a debate intundem with this year’s theme which
was 'Innovating for Girl's Education.' Sisterhood approached 4 schools within Nairobi
namely; Ngara Girls High School, Arya Girls High School both in Nairobi’s Ngara
area and Bahati Soweto and Bahati Mukuru both CC’s located in Nairobi’s
informal settlement of Embakasi area. Each school was tasked to present 3 debaters
who would present on innovative ways to ensure that more girls are able to
access education not only in Kenya but within Africa and beyond. Each team
(school) was also tasked to present on Manila paper the girls dreams, hopes and
aspirations. The girls were encouraged to draw, paste pictures and write what
they envision for themselves with no barriers in place. I believe that
sometimes we are more visual and to assist those moments where you cannot be best
able to articulate yourself visual diagrams always seem to go a long way. The
fine arts which each school presented were the background of the debater’s
podium.
It was very refreshing to
hear the innovative solutions the girls came up with. Most of them identified
that the current solutions are not working and hence it is obvious that newer
solution must be incorporated to address the same. The girls called for reforms
in the heavy taxes levied on sanitary towels which hinder many girls from being
able to attend school every month during their menses for lack of adequate
sanitary towels. It was also noted that campaigns that only provide sanitary
towels are not effective especially in the Northern parts of the country where girls
also lack proper inner wear. Strategies such as ‘panties for a purposes’ was
called for. The girls also suggested that more mentorship programmes are needed
to enable the girls to have good support structures and pillars of hope.
The debate generated a
plenary discussion where all present participants to the event contributed
towards brain storming on sustainable solutions to address the challenges faced
by the girl child in Kenya. The judges who are all very passionate about gender
development and who also work in the sector proved instrumental in steering the
discussion.
As with all competition there
must be a winner. Sisterhood is committed to inspire, support and encourage
young teenagers and as such we found it prudent to have gifts of participation
for all 12 debaters. Each contestant was presented with a certificate of participation,
and a journal from the United religions Initiative and the Sema Kenya BBC
program also presented t-shirts and wrist bands to the girls.
The first three debaters each
got Bata Shoe School Vouchers donated by the United religions Initiative. The
judges also made special mention to one of the debaters who came up with the
most innovative solutions and was also presented with a school bag from URI. The
BBC- Sema Kenya program also donated wrist bands to all 54 participants to the
event.
All 54 participants were
welcomed to refreshments after the event which took 2 hours. The event was held
at the host school Ngara Girls in Nairobi from 2:00-4:00 pm on the 18th
October 2013.
Sisterhood sincerely thanks
all the people who made this day a great success and for making the girls
matter!!
