Saturday, May 18, 2013

Amina's Story

Amina is one of the cheekiest 15 year olds you are likely to meet, and she knows it! But when sitting down to discuss Girl Power she is unusually serious about the subject.

“I have been a part of Girl Power for 5 years, since I was 10 or 11, when I was in class six” she says.  “My favourite part of Girl Power has been the socialising we have been able to do with the girls from the other schools.  Meeting new people is always good”.

“The best thing they have taught me is how to protect myself from cases like rape and things like that” she says with a lot of thought.  “Yep, I think that is it.  They have taught us how to be safe.  I think the other girls have learnt this as well”.

“When I finish school I want to be an artist” she says with excitement.  Painting, or drawing, or something different? “Painting” she says, “I want to paint nature.  Girl Power has run a couple of art classes and this has helped me realise that I want to paint. If I don’t become a painter then I would like to become a musician, a singer.  Or maybe a photographer!” she laughs.  All creative endeavours! “Yes I like to be creative” she finishes with a smile.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Girl's Stories Continue

Salma is 17 and attends Malezi Schoool.  Salma has only been a part of Girl Power for one year but she has already found the group very useful when trying to work out who she is and what she wants. “Girl Power has helped me to find myself” she says quite simply. “I didn’t know who I was until I read the books about Girl Power and then I started following the steps they gave me and I feel happier, much happier”.

Not only has the Girl Power curriculum helped Salma discover who she is, but being located so close to the Girl Power headquarters has had its advantage for Salma also.  “I find it helpful, like sometimes if I get into trouble I can talk to Hazel or Jayoung and I feel better and get ideas about how to deal with problems”.  When asked what kind of trouble she gets into, Salma looks bashful – “boyfriend issues” she laughs.  

“It makes me happy to be able to help the students outside of Sadili, it makes me feel like I have done something. I want to continue this kind of work” she says of the activities she helps Girl Power with.  As well as wanting to continue her work with Girl Power, Salma has some other ambitions.  “I want to be a Doctor.  I’ve always dreamt of being a doctor.  A cardiologist” she says with complete certainty.  And in the meantime? “I need to earn my living.  I love being independent and I’ve always been independent.  I would like to try modeling”.

Good luck Salma, wishing good luck for your dreams to come true!

Written by Hannah Collins, volunteer with Girl Power
Approved by Dr. Liz Odera, Director at Sadili Oval Sports Academy

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Girl Power In Everyday Life

As Girl Power Clubs Africa moves forward and grows, it is useful to remind ourselves WHY we are doing this.  This week we spoke with some of the girls from the schools in Kibera to ask how Girl Power has helped them and why they like being involved.

Lavender from Nairobi Day School is one of these girls. Lavender is 17 and as she puts it, has had "five years of being empowered" with Girl Power!

"The best thing about Girl Power is being able to go there and talk about the issues that affect girls and overcome them" Lavender says. "Sometimes we learn activities and we go to different areas and meet with other people and discuss what is going on".

With the Girl Power office in Kibera re-opening this month, it will mean an even closer space for the girls to meet and discuss what is troubling them.  "I think the best thing you can do is just empower girls. I feel OK because I learn things that can help me and I can learn to help my fellow friends" says Lavender.

Stay tuned for more stories from the girls in Kibera and Girl Power Clubs Africa.

Written by Hannah Collins, Volunteer at Girl Power Clubs Africa
Approved by Dr Liz Odera, Director at Sadili Oval Sport Academy

Monday, May 13, 2013

Girl power opens Kibera offices!

The weekend past saw Girl Power Clubs Africa reach another landmark in their efforts to empower young girls in Nairobi. A team of Project Assistants and Girl Power Club members from surrounding schools, visited the re-furbished offices, in Kibera, armed with paint, water and a lot of determination.

The insides of the offices were given a makeover to match the bright blue of the outside. On the inner walls, slogans of empowerment and dreams were painted to remind everyone what they can achieve - anything is possible as long as you feel it!


The re-opening of offices in Kibera will mean the girls who go to school in the area will have an established place to meet for girl power activities in their neighborhood.

"It's a safe space for the girls to express themselves" said Hazel Wamuyu, a student of Malezi School, who came down to help paint the Kibera offices. "If we get time we can also come down and use these offices, but it will depend on school" she added.

"Anyone in Girl Power will be able to use it, hopefully they can teach some of the girls to be Girl Power Champions in this office" says Chizi Mutsumi, another of the girls from Malezi.

The materials to build the offices was supported by the Netherlands Embassy, through partner organisation, Women Win, while the  structures were erected by local residents of Kibera. The washrooms were originally built at the site through donations received by Dr. Liz Odera from teaching tennis classes at a local country club. Special thanks goes to Otieno for helping to build the offices and also to his family who generously provided lunch for the girls.

 Written by Hannah Collins, volunteer at Girl Power
Approved by Dr. Liz Odera, Director at Sadili Oval Sports Academy

To see more pictures from this day, head over to our Facebook page!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Goal Training Celebration Week A Success!

Girl Power Clubs Africa is now proud to pronounce our own first group of Goal Champions! Girl Power Clubs Africa made a mark in its training history by training its first group of ''Goal Champions'' this April through a Training of Trainers Workshop. 34 young girls aged between 10 and 20 years attended the workshop, to learn, share and gain more knowledge in order to be better equipped  when training other girls.
Goal Training of Trainers
The Goal Project, a joint project in Kenya with Women Win, Standard Chartered and DFID,  empowers girls by giving them the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Programme is organised in three components: Personal Empowerment, Social Empowerment and Economic Empowerment, and has four modules:
1. Be Yourself
Jayoung, Welcome to Training of Trainers
2. Be Healthy
3. Be Empowered
4. Be Money Savvy
Girl Power's Project Assistant/M&E officer; who is also one of the first three Goal Champions, Jayoung Naphthalie Margaret, was our main facilitator for Goal Training, and did an inspirational job. She is also former participant in Girl Power.

The 34 Girls are now equipped with enough knowledge to facilitate similar training within their own schools and club sessions.

Digital Story Telling
"A girls's story is best told by she herself, in her own voice, the way she wants it.... " Says Hazel May, "her story is a powerful tool and her voice is the commanding media. Every girl's got a story, her life and it needs to be told whenever she is ready to tell it".
Hazel May is another of Girl Power's Project Assistants, and a graduate of Girl Power Program in high schools.
Hazel ,welcome to DST
DST share together
Hazel partnered with Girl Power's amazing coach and Goal Champion Mary Florence to run a Digital Story Telling Training for 6 Goal Champions, teaching them how to write, read, record and edit their stories. It was an extremely emotional week for the girls , as they talked about themselves. You will be seeing some of these stories (only from the ones that have signed a consent form to permit us to share them) soon on our online media, Africa Sports TV, face book and twitter handle links.
Goal Champ Eunice- Ice breaker time!
Trainers go Train 18th - 20th of April, 2013.
Goal Champs Shantel & Natalie Leading
After two day of rigorous of training, it was time for fun and laughter as girls expressed themselves through acting, drawing , discussions and games. The new TOT graduates  led four Goal sessions under the proud and watchful eye of their trainers. The girls showed their sharpened leadership skills in how they organised themselves and successfully lead sessions for 47 other girls!
Goal Champs lead discussions

Art, Girls Map resources
available in their community










Goal Champ, Benerdete
receives her cert

 Closing day 20th April 2013
DST Participant, Elizabeth
receives her cert
On Saturday girls gathered to have general reflection, reviewed their sessions, showed their talent as they danced, sang, performed rap and played games together. The session led by Girl Power volunteers Bella Achieng' and Diana Amollo. Each girl was awarded with certificates, as they shared lunch together and went home.
Things To Consider For the Future
Girls in the program are in school, and finding ways to advise them on how to balance their education, sports and club activities is important. Those involved in DST must sign a consent form and feel confident that we shall abide by their request that only stories they feel comfortable to share shall be shared with their rights preserved.

Our Special thanks goes to:
All the 34 Goal Champions for turning up...You are now our very first Goal champions and we are more
than proud of you! 47 participants in Training of Trainers and 6 in
First DST
First Goal Champs 
Digital Story telling! More thanks goes to our Mentor and Founder Dr. Liz for the great support, the amazing kitchen staff lead by Jane, Maureen, Coach Flo & Eve, guys responsible for captain orders, the cleaning team, our readers and Facebook friends who have been constantly following our updates!
We really appreciate  the volunteer work from Vellectar Ndevani, Ann Claire and Mary Ngina as well as Diana & Bella.
Patrons of the following schools were very supportive: Malezi High School, Malezi Primary, Huruma Girls School, Karen ''C'' Secondary, Langata Barracks High School, Nazarene School, Holy Unity Secondary, St. Patricks School and Olympic Secondary.
Those who wished to be there but did not make it, try again next time!
Also to our special visiting guest from KNSDP: Terry, thanks for spending the final day with us!
And, we of course appreciate our facilitators, Hazel, Coach Flo & Jayoung for working tirelessly in preparing for the week. Women Win and DFID continue to d a great job by training and supporting the Goal Project and we say thank you for including our organization.

Hey ladies, we could not be this good without all of you!
Thank you.


Story done by,
Jayoung Naphtalie Margaret,
Project Assistant/ M&E officer

Story edited by: Dr. Liz Odera, Founder and Mentor

Pictures courtesy of 
Sadili Camera team
Coach Flo, Hazel
(visit our facebook page for more pictures)


Girl Power Clubs Africa
http://girlpowerclubs.blogspot.com/ 
Sadili Oval Sports Academy.
www.sadili.com


Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Visits To Girl Power Clubs In March 2013


This month, our visits were done in 10 schools, with the help of 6 volunteers who


 came in to assist with the administration of the Baseline Questionnaire. Initially we had planned for 12 schools but due to some unforeseen circumstances we could not do 2 schools. We did recruitments of new members into the club in most schools. Similarly, we did selections for the girls who will come for the Training of Trainers Workshop on the Goal Curriculum and the Digital Story Telling slotted for April 2013. We selected 2-4 girls per school for this exercise basing our number of selection on the number of girls to be trained per school. We had to do some schools twice because of the page that was missing from the questionnaire. The Baseline Questionnaire was self administered.

Our visits began on the 15th-26th March 2013. The schools we visited were as follows
NAZARENE PRIMARY SCHOOL
 Here, the questionnaire was done by 50 girls. We recruited 41 new girls and selected 2 members to participate in the Training of Trainers workshop we have scheduled to commence on the 16th April 2013. Many girls has problems in doing the questionnaire, but our administrators made sure they girls were well catered for in terms of clearer explanations.
HOLY UNITY PRIMARY SCHOOL
20 Members did the questionnaire, there were 00 new recruits and 2 members were selected to participate in the ToT workshop next month. Most girls did not understand the questions in the questionnaire, but we did our best to explain it to them in terms they understood easily.


MALEZI HIGH SCHOOL
We had 15 girls fill the questionnaire, 11 current recruits and 2 selected for the ToT.
The girls filled the questionnaire well with no challenges reported by the administrator.

 NAIROBI DAY SCHOOL
The current number of recruits is 27, 30 girls filled the questionnaire and 2 selected for the ToT. The questionnaire was filled with ease, only minimal complains were reported.
Some

MAONO EDUCATIONAL CENTRE
We were not able to issue the questionnaire here owing to the fact that the school withdrew from our programme without notice. Our administrators were not allowed to see the girls either. The patron gave a reason for this, saying that most of our programmes clash with theirs thus making it difficult for them to take part in any of our activities.

OLYMPIC HIGH SCHOOL
We visited this school twice, the girls who filled the questionnaire on the first round were 19 , and the second lot was 6. This was because the some of the girls had gone for a football match on the very day we did our first visit. No recruits were made here, and 4 girls were selected to participate in the workshop.

e) MUSLIM GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL

We were unable to meet the girls because the patron was busy with other responsibilities. We made plans for another visit but we could not go because the  patron was away from school for medical purposes. Thus, the questionnaire was not   done and so was the recruitments.

f) MALEZI PRIMARY SCHOOL
      No recruitments were done here, but the questionnaire was issued and filled with 12 girls. 2 girls were selected to take part in the ToT. The girls did not have any problems doing the questionnaire as our administrators explained it to them in simpler terms making it easy for them to answer the questions.

g) PARKLANDS ARYA GIRLS
The visit was not fruitful as our administrators were unable to meet the girls due to poor timing. However, we rescheduled for another day, and still we were not able to meet the girls. Their patron gave a reason why, saying the girls has attended another school function so the turnout would be low. She therefore suggested that we plan for another visit next term because the remaining days of the term the girls are having examinations.

h) LANG’ATA BARRACKS HIGH SCHOOL
No recruits were done in this school. 12 girls however did the questionnaire and 3 girls were chosen to participate in the ToT. There was no challenge in the administration of the questionnaire reported.

KAREN C’ SECONDARY SCHOOL
This school had a total of 16 girls who all did the questionnaire. No recruits have been made yet, but they will notify us once they have the new members. 4 girls were chosen tom take part in the ToT Training. The administering of the questionnaire was successful, without any mishaps.


j) HURUMA GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL
Recruitments made here were 4, the questionnaire was done by 15 girls and 3 were selected to take part in the ToT Training. The patron was not in school on the day we visited, but we were able to have a session with the girls.

We faced some challenges in some schools while doing the visits and administering the baseline questionnaire. They were:
Misinterpretation of the questionnaire by some girls
Language barrier where some found the language very difficult to understand. For such cases, we explained the questionnaire in simpler terms that they could easily understand.
Some girls took too much time answering the questionnaire
RECOMMENDATIONS
Use of simpler and clear language
Questions  should be more open and precise
Avoid leading questions
The questions should be shorter as the students complained that the questions were many

CONCLUSIONS
All exercised planned during the visits were accomplished with ease.
Most of the girls understood the questionnaire well and correctly completed it
The number of recruitments made was satisfactory
We were received well in all schools
The girls, the patrons and also the various school administrations were very cooperative all through

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Girl Power Clubs Hold First Joint Workshop For 2013


REPORT ON THE GIRL POWER WORKSHOP HELD ON 9TH FEBRUARY 2013 IN THE HALL, SADILI OVAL FROM 9.00a.m-3.00P.M .
Introduction
This was our first workshop this year. We did an introduction to the Goal Programme to the girls. We also had life skills sessions where people shared a few aspects of life skills. The main purpose for this workshop was to launch our year’s theme ‘’I have a voice’’ and give an overview of what they expect to be doing this year and especially in the term.
Actual Report
ATTENDANCE
The turnout was good, though not all member schools that were invited came for the workshop. Those in attendance were :
             1)  Nairobi Day Sec’ School - 28
             2) Huruma Girls Sec’ School - 12
             3) Olympic High School - 11
             4) Nazarene Pri School - 20
             5) Malezi High - 8
             6) Malezi Pri School -12
             7) Lang’ata Barracks -12
             8) Holy Unity Pri School -16
Total Attendance  119 girls and 10 patrons.
Those who gave an apology for not attending were Karen C High School, Parklands Arya Girls School and Muslim Girls Academy.
Maono Secondary School did not give an apology for not attending.
All those who came were accompanied by their respective patrons.

Participation and presentations
It was a very lively gathering as everyone participated without fear in all the activities we did. We had a programme that indicated an activity for each school which was to be presented. All schools did well in this segment specifically owing to the fact that they made prior preparations for their various presentations from skits to songs and dances depicting various things, effects of abortion to young girls, importance of health facilities, HIV and AIDS, importance of education to the Girl Child..

Time Management
The girls kept time as they came in due time for the workshop. Our programme also was in line with the time we had stipulated all through the day. However, lunch was slightly delayed and this was a set back for us in the afternoon as it interfered with our afternoon programme, forcing us to abscond doing the debate. It was a disappointment for the girls as well as the patrons but they took it in good stride.

Life Skills Session
We had a joint lifeskill session which was facilitated by one of the Sadili staff, Ms. Evelyne Guchura. The girls enjoyed it as they shared a few aspects if life skills. Also, we had some music and some dancing which we incorporated into our life skills session.

Meals
We provided lunch for the ones who were present. The food was enough for both the girls and their patrons. No complains were forwarded about the food
Awards
Girl Power did decide to award girls who did something extraordinary and positive in the workshop in the opinion of the rest of the participants. The girls gave names of the girls they felt deserved to be congratulated and had to give a reason for their selection.  8 girls were selected, 4 from high schools  Nairobi Day, Huruma Girls, Barracks and Olympic. 4 from primary, 2 Malezi girls , 1 Holy Unity and 1 Nazarene.  The girls were identified as; courageous, most impressive answers, great entertainer, best singer and best dancer. They received writing note pads and special pencils while the younger ones received a Barbie gift bag. And were all more than happy for their gifts as they didn’t expect any of it.

A.O.Bs
The girls and their patrons were informed of our new Kibera office and our intended plan including our sports evenings from 4-5 here at Sadili for which proper communication will be relayed  to their patrons as soon as possible. 
Conclusion
By the end of the day, we had done all that we needed to do. The girls learnt a lot of things all through the day and they were grateful for everything we offered and a day well spent. The workshop was successful and productive.

Report  compiled by

1.Hazel May
2. Jayoung Naphtalie Margaret
Project Assistant,
Girl Power Clubs Africa.

Sadili Oval Sports Academy.