Girl Power Clubs Africa Celebrates 2017 Menstrual Hygiene Day

Approximately half of the global female population are in reproductive phase and have monthly menstruation. Research shows that in Kenya, only 12% of girls would be comfortable receiving information about menstruation from their mother. On 28^th May 2017, Girl Power Clubs Africa joined organizations around the world in celebrating the annual global menstrual hygiene day. The event was celebrated in Nairobi at Nazarene Primary School with St. Catherine’s and Nazarene Girl Power Clubs. The day was celebrated under the theme ‘Education about menstruation changes everything’ and was facilitated by Sadili staff Joy Akim, Philipa Mtamira, Aurelia Mito and Trizah Mboya.

Discussions during this highly interactive and informative session revolved around: understanding what menstruation is, what menstrual hygiene entails, what a girl needs during her periods, myths and facts about menstruation as well as overcoming taboos surrounding periods. The girls were also given a chance to ask questions and to talk about their personal experiences with menstruation.

“The one lesson I am taking home with me is that menstruation is beautiful, and is not something to be ashamed of,” remarked Roslyn, a pupil at Nazarene Primary school. “I am yet to have my first period but I will be very well prepared for it when it comes.”

Girl Power Clubs Africa is a leadership program focused on providing girls with a chance to learn life skills and learn to make decisions that affect their lives and their communities positively. It strongly believes that that every woman and girl has a right to know the importance of hygiene management during menstruation. One of its focus areas is on providing factual guidance and positive information around menstruation, breaking taboos and traditional practices.

Every year on May 28, Menstrual Hygiene Day (MHD) is celebrated worldwide to raise awareness about the importance of menstrual hygiene management and break taboos for women and adolescent girls.

It was initiated by the German-based NGO WASH United in 2014. 

Girl Power Clubs Siaya County Emerging Issues Report: Feb-March 2015

Girl Power Clubs in Sigomre has been making slow but sure progress this term.  Due to a nationwide teachers strike that paralysed learning in all public schools in the country, many schools opened well into the new term, in early February. Having begun so late in the school term, the school administrations gave priority to catching up with the school syllabuses and curricula over other needs. Many extra-curricular activities were dropped except for those designated as a must by the Ministry of education. The exceptions were competitive inter-school sports tournaments, debates, science congress and drama. In the hurried and packed school timetables many head teachers were reluctant to assign time for student club activities this term even where these appeared on the timetables. A few of the teachers (thankfully vey few) appear to feel that Girl Power is an additional responsibility they can do without unless they receive compensation.

Mentoring of schoolgirls is almost totally ignored in many communities in Kenya, and although the ministry has included counselling in the curriculum in all schools in most cases it is given lip service and only applied on a case by case basis. In the hurried atmosphere that attended resumption of teaching in schools many teachers would rather give the time to remedial classes or sports. Sports usually wins out especially as the responsibility for this is delegated to a coach or sports teacher. Also parents pay for sports activities and expect value for themir money not to mention the fact that most students love sporting activities.

This term there have been a lot of interruptions that interfered with the seamless flow in Girl Power Club activities. Eleven schools in Sigomre Ward have Girl Power clubs, but three of them have yet to hold a Goal activity, especially the secondary schools. Examples are Tingare Secondary,  Moi Uloma, and Got Osimbo Girls. The first two are sport champions in the county while the second one being the only "girls only" boarding school in the constituency is under great pressure to better its academic performance and has embarked on an exam-oriented regime which has even affected sports. Our tactic in most cases has been to turn up anyway and teach a life skill during the sports session or to deliver more than one topic per session.

Despite this, more and more members of the community are eager that their daughters join the Clubs, especially since the girls are involved in sports activities. They say they have seen a positive impact that the sports and life skills activities have had on their daughters and would wish that the work continues. In fact at one public meeting called by the Chief parents wanted to know when Girl Power would start at their local primary and secondary school. There has also been an increase in the number of girls joining Girl Power and we have had to cap this at a maximum of 50 girls to allow for meaningful engagement, especially as use of English is a challenge especially in public primary schools here which begin learning the language only in Std 4. But our insistence on its use is beginning to bear fruit as more members are using it with improved confidence.

The boys of course are quite jealous and a few of the male teachers also  wonder why girls should receive special attention. Such teachers and headteachers have gone as far as using the Girl Power balls for the boys teams saying they are school property. This is the case in St Ignatius Sigomre Primary and in Ninga Primary. However Rome was not built in a day and the positive influence that Girl Power is exerting is changing the girls into questioning injustices and pushing for their rights. This has happened in Ninga Primary where the girls have insisted they too must be given time to play as a team on the soccer pitch and to use the Girl Power balls.

We are pushing on with the work and hope to have more sessions before schools get down to exams or close the term. We are staying positive as usual, because we are POWERFUL!

Maria Okong'o
Project Assistant
Girl Power Clubs Africa
Ugunja Constituency, Siaya County

NAIROBI REPORT FOR THE MONTH OF JULY 2014

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 23^rd 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.