KEEPING GIRLS IN SCHOOL

Vital Stats

Nixon O

Springfield, IL

  • people helped100
  • People Doing It 5

The Problem

GOAL: The overall goal of this initiative is to contribute towards the social, economic and psychological empowerment of young people through environmental conservation as an income generating project. OBJECTIVE: The overall objective of this project is to raise funds through the sale of tree seedlings to support the education of girls by providing sanitary protection to girls in public primary schools. THE PROBLEM: Young girls in public primary schools from poor families who have reached menstrual age in Kenya miss school and important lessons for nearly one week every month due to lack of appropriate sanitary protection during their monthly periods. Most families in Kenya live under one dollar a day and can not afford to spare money that can feed the whole family for one day to buy sanitary products to one girl. The cost for one set of sanitary pads is over one dollar; this has made it impossible for these families to consider sanitary protection for girls in schools as a priority. Several studies we have conducted reveals that school girls from poor families who have reached menstrual age miss about 32 lessons every month during their monthly periods, this sums up to about 96 lessons in one term and 288 lessons in one year, this has a serious and negative impact on their academic performance and self esteem.

Plan of Action

THE INTERVENTION: This project seeks to bridge the above gaps by supporting these girls get access to free sanitary products while engaging out of school youths to develop tree seedlings as an income generating activity, the funds raised through the sale of our tree seedlings have been and will be used to secure sanitary products which have been and will be distributed free to the 100 girls currently engaged in our program, the rest of the funds have been and will be used to expand the project activities as well as sustain the youths engaged. We started a pilot project in 2009 and to date have developed a tree nursery with over 10,000 different species of tree seedlings ready for transplanting; we have so far sold over 2000 tree seedlings to a few local companies and individuals and used the money raised from the sale to purchase sets of sanitary pads that have been and will be continually distributed for free to the girls in our school. THE IMPACT: We have been supporting the education of 100 young girls in our school through the distribution of free sanitary products. The girls currently in our program have not missed school since the program started, these girls would have missed over 32 lessons per month, according to their teachers, their performance and self esteem has improved significantly.
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