GIRL POWER
CLUBS AFRICA
JULY REPORT FROM NAIROBI
COUNTY
The 2nd term of the
school calender is often the longest and the busiest with most activities. July
the 3rd month of this term had 5 weeks and activities that had been included in
this month have been:
1. Music festival
competitions for those preceeding to higher levels. Schools that have been
active in this are Olympic High School, Olympic primary and Huruma Girls whose
members are currently part of the Music competition in Mombasa for a week. They
left for the destination on the 9th of August and have in practice for it.
2. Footall
competitions. Schools that participated in this were Nazarene Primary, St.
Catherine and Olympic High school who were away for two weeks and competed in
Kajiado county.
3. School trips.
Most academic school trips take place in 2nd term and especially July for upper
primary classes and high school. This includes student seminars such as Nairobi
Day School has been involved in.
4. Preparation for
exams, evening tution , Inter-school , school and MOCK exams from the 4th to
the 5th week of the month with some finishing on the 1st week of August as they
close.
This means that
most extra-curricular activities including clubs can take place more smoothly
in the first 3 weeks. Depending on the time allocated per Girl Power club each
school would be expected to have 1 to 2 session per week and therefore in July
we expect to record 4 sessions at most per school with those who have sessions
on Saturday being much better placed to record more sessions at end of July
since they would have less interferance with other weekly school programmes.
The month of July
saw the return of one of our old clubs with a great bang! Karen C Secondary
School now turning to an all girls boarding school has rejoined us with over 80
girls meeting for at least 3 hours every Saturday with project assistant
Jayoung and have so far recorded an average of atleast 60 girls per session and
have managed about 19 sessions from both Be Yourself (Module 1) and Be Healthy
(Module 2) with one session on HIV/AIDS to go which will be their opener for
the next term. Presently, they have no certain patron but their principal has
promised to get them one. Most of their sessions are up on salesforce.
Visits to this
school were done on the 10th, 12th, 19th, 26th and the 2nd of July. All
Saturdays apart from the introduction day 10th July which was a Thursday.
Sessions covered here included: Introduction to Girl Power, Introduction to
Goal, Ice Breakers , Secret Whispers and Communication Skills- Non -Verbal
Communication, Girls and boys, Gender and Work, People and Things, Leadership,
Conflict Ladder, Peer Pressue, Saying No and meaning it, Whom am I what Do I
want to Do, Role Models and Mentorship. In Be Healthy we had Body Image,
Hygiene, Menstruation, Contraception, Bodies, Emotions and Sexuality, Whats
your position and we had lots of
questions on Whom am i what do i want to do, Peer Pressure, Saying No,
Mentorship, Menstruation, contraception , Relationships , Bodies , Emotions and
Sexuality. A few on academic study tips. In general apart from Nazarene,
Olympic Primary , Huruma Girls its the most interactive group and most
interactive among the high schools.
At Olympic Primary
school they recorded 5 reported sessions this term, 4 up on Salesforce. They
have their meetings on Fridays from 3:30 pm. The girls meet alone whenever
possible and are very impressive considering their ages. They take charge for
themselves and lead their own sessions. Their club activities have been
interfered with by the numerous school extra curricular activities this being
the music festival term and school trips. Visits were on the 22nd, 30th and 1st
August. Thier sessions included values and discipline, conflict , living with
HIV and Aids, peer pressure and hygiene.
At Nazarene Primary
School , their patron is now taking
charge of their sessions following the June training on Goal that we had. They
meet on Wednesdays. For July they have reported 1 meeting session so far, a day
out on sports and the rest spent the rest of the weeks on end of term exams. They
had a visit on the 23rd of July by Women Win’s Yvone Henry and had a
great interaction session with her sharing the things they have learnt along
the way through Goal. Visits here were
done on 7th, 16th, 23rd of July with our intended visit of 1st August to see
progress cancelled as inter-school exams had already began a week earlier. Mr.
Charles did mention his had to repeat sessions for the sake of new girls and
follow as was trained at the workshop in
June and have so far done Non- verbal communication, communication skills and
will go back and forth. They promised to make this available and communicate
once all major school activities are over. However they have been actieve in
inter school competitions and trainings for most wednesdays when they would
have been in sessions. Their presentation and interaction with Women Win's
Yvonne Henry on the 23rd was the most impressive of the three schools visited
by her on that day.
Huruma girls meet
on Thursdays 4-5. They mainly had
discussions on rights this month, some on music festival practice , and end
term exams. The girls sometimes meet alone and other times their patron comes
around to help them. They have been having general recording of sessions
challenge making it abit difficult to track individual session records. Their
recorded sessions will be sent back to them for clarrification. One of the girl
leaders responsible for sessions recording whom we contacted mentioned she will
avail herself to explain the sessions once they are back from the Mombasa Music
Festival competitions. The club has been having two guide books; Goal and The
World Starts With Me. They have been mixing up this two which some of the
sessions in The World Starts With Me will be different from Goal and in most
cases might not be possible to put it on sales force. In July we made 1 visit
to see the progress and collect sessions on the 31st July.
Holy Unity High
School , Holy Unity Primary and St. Catherine.
The high school
meet on Fridays and the primary Monday and Wednesdays. St. Catherine meet on
Wednesdays. The first two have had general meeting and running of sessions
challenges them having had relied on Goal Champion Caroline who is now forced
to be absent attending to enforceable home accident forced to be in hospital
more than a month, despite having a few
among them. St. Catherine is often also met by Caroline but their patron does
take charge. Reports received from this schools in the past month apart from
St. Catherine are unclear and cannot be entered on Salesforce until we have
them all clarified. St. Catherine is yet to send in theirs. Visits to this
schools were done on the 21st and 23rd July.
Olympic High
School, Starays Secondary, The Malezis and Nairobi Day Secondary have not
returned sessions for July. Olympic high school group have been away on soccer
competitions for most July in Kajiado County and only returned in time for
exams. Nairobi day and Starays promised to send theirs in after their exams.
Visits to Olympic High were on 16th, 22nd and 30th. To Starays 7th ans 21st
with intended visit on 1st August cancelled as exams were already in progress a
week before and the teacher mentioned to contact us once free. Meet some of the
girls responsible who mentioned they have not done much on their own apart from
abit of sports. Nairobi day 7th, 21st and 1st August. Here their session was
given to a student who was away on a seminar.
CHALLENGES IN JULY
AND THE TERM IN GENERAL.
•
There has been a noted inconsistence in the attendance of some
beneficiaries from the session returned in nairobi.
•
Irregular reports. There is a problem in the schools dealing with new
participants as they are both entered into same session forms with the
regulars. This causes entry and tracking problems of beneficiaries against their session
attendance which means until the report is clarified entries cannot be made so as to avoid
confusion.
•
From the above reports there is a striking difference between between
schools that meet on their own days and times and those that have same days and
more often than not same times for session. It means that one is going to have
to lose out is they totally depend on having a project assistant in sight.
There has also been the challenge of proximity between the schools for days we
have more than one school within close hours and often inflexibility of some of
the school programmes.
