A few months following the completion of the five-year project to educate and provide skills to girls in Kenya's most marginalised communities, ActionAid Kenya looks back at the impact it had on society, the challenges overcome and lessons learned along the way.
The Education for Life project that began in September 2019 was funded by UK aid through the Girls’ Education Challenge. It focused on providing life skills to girls of school-going age who had no interface with education, or those who dropped out of school - especially before going to upper classes, or at least up to Class 4 in Kenya.
Rather than using the existing social structures such as the local administration system ActionAid took a different route that involved the local community in identifying girls who needed to be enrolled in the programme.
For Susan Otieno, ActionAid's Executive Director, the programme presented an opportunity to expand the intervention scope which previously centered on addressing violence against girls within the education system.
"As we addressed the issue of violence against girls, one question kept coming up, 'Why address violence alone while girls face multiple barriers that hinder their education?’ We had specialised so much in looking at the rights of girls in school, including walking to and from school safely. But we had to look into other challenges that impact girls including retrogressive practices such as early marriages and FGM. We realised that looking at the issue of violence alone would not address all these other challenges."
ActionAid's approach was to get first-hand information from the affected girls, a task that involved getting deep into the areas where these girls lived.
"We realised that if we only talked to those in school, we would not get the full picture. Those in school told us, 'Why don't you talk to those who are not here and find out why they are not in school?’ We found out that there were girls out of school who would have loved to go back but were already married though they had the desire to gain better life skills."
The programme worked with more than 5,000 girls, included getting them trained in leadership skills to empower them economically. This involved getting those who were younger than 19 and who had been out of school into the catchup centres where partners such as VSO coached them through educator facilitators.
Collins Olang, ActionAid Programme Manager says, “Each girl within the programme had unique circumstances that required specialised attention from the partners involved. For example, we realised that one of the key reasons why girls were out of school was the high cost of living in all five counties. In Kilifi County, you have a watchman levy, and sports levy among others, totaling Sh2,500 a child. A family of four children cannot afford Sh10,000 for the children to go to school. It was easier for the parent to decide to keep the children at home and feed them there."
Among the interventions, was the creation of different pathways depending on each girl's situation. For example, some 19-year-old girls were already mothers and needed more practical skills than younger girls who needed more in-depth literacy tutoring.
Others had dropped out of school early while some never went to school. There are those who were married, and others separated. Such diverse circumstances required that programme partners adapted their project activities to ensure girls’ barriers to access quality education were tackled.
For better placement, each girl had an individualised action plan informed by her literacy and numeracy assessment as she entered the catchup centres. The basic pathways included a back-to-school proposition for those aged 10 to 14 years, while the older girls needed startup capital and basic training in entrepreneurship.
"We had to establish an entry behavior in the six to the nine-month course. For example, how do you bring in a mother who has a child and who is disabled? A girl would say, 'Look, I am a mother, I cannot leave the children but if I have skills, I could support them.’ The majority of girls opted for such non-formal pathways for building skills. Then we brought them to the catchup centers to accelerate literacy and life skills. They learned how to speak, demand and stand up for their rights.”
Some of the girls would come with their children and the programme had to be adapted to suit the girls including those with disabilities. ActionAid, in consultation with the other partners, brought in childminders who would look after the children and allow the girls to learn.
Susan Otieno, the Executive Director of ActionAid International Kenya says partnerships can be tricky. Organisations can have different priorities and may need to change focus and/or activities which can have an impact on project delivery. Government commitments can also change over time which can have an impact, but we are fortunate that girls’ education remains a strong priority. She says the exposure the organisation had in different fields gave them an edge in the development programmes.
"Some think we are radicals but we are unapologetic. We have worked on human rights since the early 1990s. This has exposed us to much learning. When you secure girls' rights, the whole community benefits."