Educating & Keeping Girls Safe in a Pandemic

Prior to the current COVID- 19 pandemic, Sub – Saharan Africa was reported as the region with the highest out-of-school rates for all age groups. According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Fact Sheet No. 48[1] of the 63 million out-of-school children of primary school age, 34 million, live in Sub-Saharan Africa. The region also accounts for the 27 million out of school adolescents. It is trite that due to poverty levels, cultural and social beliefs, more girls are likely to be excluded from education than boys.  For every 100 boys of secondary school age out of school there are 123 girls denied the right to education in the said region[2].

Three years ago, Akili Dada started programming for girls in Turkana County of Kenya. Turkana is the poorest region in the country and has a population of 926,976.[3] It has also been home to the Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement hosting over 58,000 refugees. Through our Young Changemakers program, Akili Dada has been providing scholarships to adolescent girls in the region as well as hosting residential leadership academies for over 300 girls as well as teacher and parent engagements. Akili Dada’s partner school in the region, also doubles up as a shelter for its student population. Predominantly a boarding high school, the school is also a source of refuge for students who cannot go home during the holidays due to violent seasonal rivers ,bandits, tribal clashes, harmful cultural practices such as beading which is often a precursor to early and forced marriage as well as severe famine and extensive drought.

With the Government Directive to unilaterally shut down all institutions of learning across the country as a way to curb the spread of the Corona virus, we are deeply concerned about the social, physical and psychological cost of these decision especially as relates to  underserved girls such as those we program for in Turkana. We do know that the number of adolescent girls who will remain out of school after this pandemic will greatly surpass the over 132 million girls globally who were already out of school. At the date of writing this article[4], there has been no reported COVID-19 case in Turkana County. While we applaud the Government’s efforts to address the pandemic and reduce further infections, we call for a more pragmatic response for adolescent girls and other vulnerable groups of people. Indefinitely closing schools that also act as shelters is a counter productive measure that may see very few girls return back to school. Even if they do return, we will be plagued with a further alarmingly high national teenage pregnancy rate as well as an upsurge in harmful cultural practices. The e-learning and radio programming as a stop gap measure to mitigate the massive disruption to education access is also a far to reach option for most households in Turkana. There will be a real risk of regression of studies in the region for both girls and boys.

Continuing education through the primary pathway of an in school set up must be considered an option and a priority in this region. Keeping students in school in this region will mean that they are safe from cross fires and bandit attacks. Keeping students in school in Turkana will also mean that they are afforded at least three meals a day. Keeping girls in school will also ensure they are safe from being beaded, from getting pregnant and with access to sanitary towels. Keeping girls in school will also mean that they are guaranteed a right to gain an education despite being living in a pandemic!

First Published on 1st May on  Akili Dada's webite

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[1] http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs48-one-five-children-adolescents-youth-out-school-2018-en.pdf

[2] UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR) (2016). “Leaving No One Behind: How Far on the Way to Universal Primary and Secondary Education?” GEMR policy paper 27/UIS fact sheet No. 37. Montreal and Paris: UIS and GEMR.

[3] 2019 GOK Census Report

[4] 11^th May 2020

Remarkable girls in Turkana and Kilifi Counties.

Approximately three years ago at Akili Dada we started the conversation of scaling our programs and being more intentional to serve the most underserved girls and young women in our communities. For the Young ChangeMakers Program, scaling our scholarship program meant venturing into new territories where few other scholarships funds were present and where the need was dire. After a year of extensive research, site visits, learning and unlearning what works for girls in these geographies we finally settled on two pilot schools: St. Daniel Comboni Secondary School and St. Thomas Girls Secondary School in Turkana and Kilifi counties respectively.  In 2019, we successfully awarded scholarships in both schools.

According to the Ministry of Health - Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Report, the net enrollment rate of children in primary school in Turkana County is 59%. Only 12% of girls in this region transition to secondary school. Many girls in the region are at risk of dropping out of school due to poverty, harmful cultural practices such as FGM and early and forced child marriage. In Kilifi, on the other hand, only a quarter, (26%) of children in the official secondary school-age are enrolled in secondary school. The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2014 shows that 1 in every 4 girls aged 15-19 years in Kilifi has delivered a child. Alarming high rates of teenage pregnancy, low illiteracy, poverty and poor parenting plague the region.

Yet with these shocking statistics, barriers and huge impediments there are always outliers. In our humbling and fulfilling experience programming in both these regions we have met them! Not one girl but many of them! We have seen firsthand perspective how girls with a will and an opportunity can soar. For instance, we have met the fantastic four; Dzidia, Susan, Swabra and Safina from St. Thomas Girls who invented an IED Detector for the Kenya Defense Force as part of their science project! We have met the pioneer KCSE candidates from St. Daniel Comboni who despite lack of proper infrastructure in their school were able to send a dozen girls to public university later this year. We have met girls who are hungry to learn, who want a seat at the front row of their class and who want the same for their sisters, cousins and neighbors! We have met girls who are challenging lack of implementation of the back to school policy and who refuse to accept that they cannot be a teenage mother and a student at the same time. We have met girls who have spoken up and who have convinced their parents and guardians that education is truly their key and their right to life. We have met girls who are hopeful for the future and who want to change the narrative for girls in Turkana and Kilifi. We are excited to be part of their journey and can’t wait to see how their stories unfold….

First Published By Akili Dada on 24^th March 2020

Kamae Girls Borstal Institution Graduation Speech

7^th July 2017 10:30 a.m.

Mistakes….we can survive them….

(L-R) Clean Start Director Teresa Njoroge, Mumbi and Catherine Kiama of Akili Dada & Esther Mwangi.

Ladies, gentlemen and our distinguished graduating class…good morning.

On behalf of Akili Dada, we are truly delighted to be part of the 1^st inaugural graduation ceremony and to share in this momentous celebration with you. We applaud the efforts of the 21 young ladies who are the reasons we are here today. We salute you for your hard work, resilience and determination and pray that these are traits that will stay with you and that will serve you well for a long long time to come…

Before we get to the most important part of today’s ceremony; which is the cake cutting- allow me to tell you a story…. When I was 6 or 7 years old, I pushed my big sister into a pond of brown murky water. This pond was actually a rather deep garbage hole by any standard and I pushed my sister in deliberately. At the time, I thought it would be funny and I did not think of the possible harm that may have befallen my own big sister! When I was 8 or 9 years old, I got into a fight with a boy who was one class my senior because he was a bully. When I was 14 of 15 while in High School, I found out one of my classmates was using drugs which were actually stolen and instead of reporting her immediately, I kept the drugs in my locker for a whole term…

Looking back at my childhood escapades, today I realize how many laws I potentially broke and how many mistakes some near fatal I have made. For instance, pushing my sister into that pond could have easily turned to at best- assault occasioning actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm or at worst; God forbid –attempted murder! My first and only fight with Christopher the bully could have resulted in me being charged with battery and storing stolen drugs because I thought I was protecting a classmate , that would have just had me charged with handling stolen goods, aiding and abetting the furtherance of a crime and being in possession of narcotics to name but a few.

The punishment for each of those crimes is a custodial sentence which means I could have easily been here in this institution just like you. You have made mistakes, but so have I….if everyone here would be really honest with themselves and if we are lucky with us too; you will realize they have made mistakes too…Some of them have perhaps driven rather recklessly while on their cell phone or even worse while after a drink too many, others have perhaps taken something that isn’t there’s while the rest may have said something untrue about a person. That could have them charged too with reckless and dangerous driving, theft and defamation…

The thing about being human also means we make mistakes. Lots of them!!!Some of them may crush our worlds while others may go unnoticed but they are all mistakes! Mistakes teach us, mistakes scare some of us but mistakes do not define us. Someone once said that when you make a mistake, there are three things you should do:

1-      Admit it

2-      Learn from it

3-      Do not repeat it!

I don’t know what mistake lead you here and quite frankly it doesn’t matter! But I do want to know if you have admitted it, if you are learning from it and if you solemnly swear never to repeat it!!!!

The mere fact we are gathered here on this beautiful day may be a good indication that some if not all of us are not letting our mistakes prevent us from achieving our goals. I encourage each and every one of to you to keep pursuing that which sets your soul on fire, to keep growing and too keep going. And when you do leave here, which you will….I pray that you will put yourself out there, that you will aspire to continue with your education and that you will remember that you are not your mistake and you are not your struggles, you are not your shortcoming but that you are a beautiful, amazing and all sorts of incredible.

Academy Robert Bosch Fellowship (Central & Eastern Europe and Africa)

The Academy Robert Bosch Fellowship (Central & Eastern Europe and Africa) is open to citizens of the following countries:

Angola

Ethiopia

Mozambique

Tanzania

The deadline for this fellowship has been extended and will close on Friday, 7 July 2017 at 23h59 (BST).  Please note that previous applicants need not re-apply.

This is a 9 month fellowship. The Fellowship will be based at Chatham House from month 1-3, The Institute of International Relations Prague from months 4-6 and back at Chatham House from months 7-9.

In the following application you will be asked to submit your CV, a writing sample, two references of which one must be academic, and answer questions on your research proposal and leadership capabilities. Please note that at this stage we only require the contact details for your referees, not full references.

For the writing sample please attach one piece of writing of which you must be the sole author.  The writing sample must be in English (or an English translation completed by the applicant only) and no more than 10 A4 pages in length.

For more information on this Fellowship please click here.

If you have any queries please email AcademyRobertBoschFellowships@chathamhouse.org

Westerwelle Young Founders Programme 2017

Apply now for the Westerwelle Young Founders Programme 2017 and attend the Young Founders Conference in Berlin, Germany from 13 to 16 September 2017

The Westerwelle Foundation for International Understanding supports collaboration that transcends borders: between young entrepreneurs, executives and decision makers from around the world. The Foundation globally connects people and ideas and creates spaces for interaction and innovation. It fosters an approach that puts consensus over conflict and community cooperation over confrontation.

As part of the Young Founders Programme, the Westerwelle Foundation hosts an annual conference in Berlin: the Young Founders Conference. Its focus is to connect young founders from developing and emerging economies with each other and with the German startup scene. The participants of the Young Founders Conference 2017 will have the unique opportunity to meet and interact with successful German entrepreneurs and political decision makers and will join a network of like-minded outstanding young founders from developing and emerging countries.

During the one year long programme, you will get access to:

·         The Young Founders Conference in Berlin, 13 to 16 September 2017

·         A mentoring programme

·         Invitations and scholarships for entrepreneurship conferences

·         Online coaching and webinars

·         An international alumni network

The Young Founders Conference 2017 will take place in Berlin from 13 to 16 September 2017.

Travel and accommodation will be covered by the Westerwelle Foundation.

Applicants should:

·         Have recently (0-5 years) started a for-profit company with a scalable business model

·         Be based in a developing or emerging country or have a strong business focus on developing and emerging countries 

·         Possess a good working knowledge of English

Please note that foreign applicants must possess valid travel documents (including a visa, if necessary) to enter Germany, and valid travel medical insurance.

To apply, please fill out the application form by 30 April 2017. 

CODESRIA 2017 Gender Institut: Feminist Scholarship, Universities and Social Transformation in Africa

Application Deadline: 15th May 2017
Number of visits: 2804

Date: 12 -23 June 2017
Venue: Dakar, Senegal

Call for Applications

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, invites applications from academics and researchers from African universities and research centers to participate in the 2017 session of the Gender institute, which will take place in Dakar, Senegal from June 12-23, 2017.

Over the last two decades, CODESRIA has convened an annual gender institute to fortify efforts at integrating gender research and scholarship into the mainstream of social science in Africa. The overall objective of the gender institute continues to be to contribute to a greater awareness about gender issues in African social research milieus, the integration of gender analysis into social research undertaken in Africa, and the inclusion of gender approaches in the agenda of social science debates on methodology. Besides, the institute has served as a strategy to catalyze efforts by feminist academics in the universities to create space for women’s studies as a new epistemology in the study of the disciplines and challenge the prevailing androcentric view of society and culture. Ultimately, these efforts were not meant to be ends in themselves. They were part of the broader efforts to make universities in the continent much better and entrench them as critical spaces for the continent’s transformation.

After slightly over two decades of CODESRIA’s engagement with issues of gender scholarship using various fora, including the Gender Institute, the 2017 session of the institute seeks to provide an opportunity for participants to reflect on gains made and persisting challenges. This is especially in respect to the ways in which the engagements have made universities in Africa better institutions to spearhead the project of social transformation.

Universities in the continent have grown tremendously. New continental, regional and national level development blueprints such as the African Union’s vision 2063 place higher education and gender dimensions as central to realizing the visions articulated in different policy documents. At the institutional levels, enrollments are surging, institutional diversity is growing and missions have been reviewed to refocus the teaching and research functions of universities to better address societal needs. Feminist scholarship now flourishes in a number of institutions compared to the situation two decades ago. Revised curricular, new access policies and funding interventions have increased the number of women participating in the institutions.

At the same time, there is a sense that the institutions continue to operate in a manner that does not engage more organically with emerging problems in society. Increased graduate unemployment has, for example, been blamed on lack of better preparation at the institutions; growing pressures for curriculum reform and decolonization, including pressures to decolonize feminist scholarship abound; new challenges in graduate education are emerging, including the urging to connect graduate level teaching and research to global trends; among others. These issues bring into focus the need to re-examine how the various developments, including a greater embracement of feminist and gender scholarship, have contributed or limited the potential of the institutions to connect more organically with society.

Universities have since their establishment been conceived as critical drivers of social transformation and change. At the very least, this conception implies that universities have to work in ways that trigger fundamental changes in society’s core institutions, the polity and the economy, with major implications for relationships between social groups or classes, and for the means of the creation and distribution of wealth, power and status. This means going beyond the reproduction outcomes that have often been more apparent to examining the potentials that academic discourse creates to fundamentally reshape social relations for the common good. The immersion of feminist scholarship into all aspects of university life in Africa therefore logically creates an expectation of alternative outcomes. Indeed, transformation is at the very core of feminist praxis. As a theory of knowledge and an intellectual practice, feminism deconstructs the epistemological foundations of patriarchy and contributes to the emancipation of women as subjects, but also in the transformation of institutions as sites for critical intellectual engagements.

Feminism and gender discourses have potential to create alternative visions of society by challenging structural obstacles to progressive social change. While past scholarship has focused on examining how the institutions have been made receptive to feminist scholarship and to the female gender in a physical and epistemological sense, it is time reflections were made on the extent that feminist scholarship has made universities in Africa better institutions for society; for the transformation project. How empowering has gender scholarship been in imagining better approaches to studying and producing knowledge on and about Africa?

Candidates submitting proposals for consideration as laureates should critically interrogate the outcomes of feminist and gender scholarship in connection to the broad debate on the role of higher education in social transformation; understood more generally as the radical and fundamental changes in society’s core institutions, the polity and the economy, with major implications for relationships between social groups or classes, and for the means of the creation and distribution of wealth, power and status. Proposals should more specifically interrogate issues revolving around trends in knowledge production and consumption, its content, quality, utility and demand for Africa’s transformation and its fit with regards to sustainable development concerns in Africa.

Laureates

Candidates submitting proposals for consideration should be PhD students or early career academics in the social sciences and humanities and those working in the broad field of gender and women studies. Scholars outside universities but actively engaged in the area of policy process and/or social movements and civil society organizations are also encouraged to apply. The number of places available for laureates of this Institute is only fifteen (15). Africa-based academics and non-African scholars who are able to support their participation are also encouraged to submit proposals for consideration.

Applications

Applications for consideration as laureates for the institute should include:
1. One duly completed application form;
2. An application letter indicating institutional or organizational affiliation;
4. A curriculum vitae;
5. A research proposal of not more than ten (10) pages, including a descriptive analysis of the work the applicant intends to undertake, an outline of the theoretical interest of the topic chosen by the applicant, and the relationship of the topic to the problematic and concerns of the theme of the Institute;
6. Two (2) reference letters from scholars or researchers known for their competence and expertise in the candidate’s research area (geographic and disciplinary), including their names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Deadline

The deadline for the submission of applications is 15th May 2017. Laureates will be informed of the outcome of the selection process by 30 May 2017. Selected laureates will be expected to prepare and submit completed draft research papers to be presented during the Institute to CODESRIA no later than 15th June 2017. Laureates will be expected to work on the submitted draft (and not on the abstract of the proposal) and prepare it during the Institute for subsequent possible publication.

All applications should be sent by email to: gender.institute@codesria.sn

For further information, please contact:
CODESRIA
Gender Institute
Tel. (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23 
E-mail: gender.institute@codesria.sn
Website: http://www.codesria.org

	Formulaire de candidature institut sur le genre 2017	Word	16.1 kb
	Application Form 2017 Gender Institute	Word	34 kb

WTO Young Professionals Program 2018

The WTO Young Professionals Programme (YPP) is a unique opportunity for qualified young professionals up to the age of 32 years as at 1 January 2018, from eligible developing and least-developed country (LDC) WTO Members, to enhance their knowledge and skills on WTO and international trade issues. The Programme aims to widen the pool of professionals from these countries who can later be more competitive with respect to recruitment in the WTO and/or other regional and international organizations.

Applicants must be 32 years old or younger, as at 1 January 2018. A cover letter (letter of motivation) MUST accompany the application – the letter should also note UP TO THREE areas of work that applicants would be interested in, in order of preference. Applications with no accompanying letter will not be considered.

This is a limited programme that offers selected young professionals with the opportunity to gain work experience in the WTO. There is no guarantee of an extension of the programme or of a job offer after the one-year programme.

The selected Young Professional will be placed in a specific Division of the WTO Secretariat in accordance with the needs and priorities of the Organization; and based on the identified areas of interest of the Young Professional. Each Young Professional may express interest in not more than three areas of WTO work; and in order of preference.

The areas of work may include, inter alia, Accessions, Agriculture, Dispute Settlement, Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Government Procurement, Market Access (tariffs and non-tariff barriers), Rules, Trade and Development, Trade Facilitation, Economic research, Trade Policy Analysis, Trade in Services and Investment, Council and Trade Negotiations, Trade and Environment, Technical Barriers to Trade, Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures, Trade-Related Technical assistance.

Location:

 Switzerland

Benefits

Starting Salary: CHF 3,500 monthly salary (approximate)

 Eligibilities

Education:

Advanced university degree in law economics, or other international trade-related subjects relevant to WTO work.
Knowledge and skills:

Relevant expertise or continued academic study in a field of interest to the work of the WTO.
Ability to think strategically; work independently and in a team.
Demonstrated strong interest in international trade.
Commitment and passion for trade or WTO-related work.

Work Experience:

Minimum two (2) years of relevant experience.
Languages:

Fluency in English. A good working knowledge of one other official WTO language, French or Spanish, would be an advantage.
Additional Information:

Preference shall be given to nationals from WTO Members without any representation at the professional level in the Secretariat.

Eligible Regions: WTO Member Countries