- Forum for African Women Educationalists – Kenya Chapter launched the project in Machakos on Friday.
- FAWE - Kenya, a local Non-Governmental Organization that supports women and girls acquire education for development at the County and National levels.
Image: GEORGE OWITI
A lobby group has launched a program dubbed imarisha mschana to address teenage pregnancies in Machakos County.
Forum for African Women Educationalists – Kenya Chapter launched the project in Machakos on Friday.
FAWE - Kenya, a local Non-Governmental Organization that supports women and girls acquire education for development at the County and National levels.
The organization’s program officer Beverly Mumbo said they implement programs that aim to empower girls and women through gender-responsive education.
“Our work focuses on influencing action to reduce gender disparities in access, retention, performance and completion through a range of initiatives,” Mumbo said.
Mumbo said the imarisha mschana program was funded by Master Card Foundation.
“The purpose of the program is to deal with cases of teenage pregnancies that are within the county,” Mumbo said.
“Following the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, we saw a great rise in the number of teenage pregnancies in Machakos County. We want to get to the bottom of this and find out what the cause is and how we can ensure that these girls are able to go back to school and make something of themselves,” Mumbo said.
Mumbo said girls who fall victim to teenage pregnancies should know that just because they got pregnant and just because of one mistake, their lives don’t come to an end.
The launch was attended by Machakos county director of education Margaret Murigi, representatives from the area county commissioner’s office, and different stakeholders from the Ministry of Gender, alongside the youth.
They discussed how best they could work collaboratively to ensure that they end teenage pregnancies in Machakos County.
Mumbo said the project will be implemented in 20 counties that included Machakos, Kajiado, Nyandarua, Kiambu, Meru, Murang’a and Siaya.
She said it will focus on girls since they are disadvantaged especially those from low-income families.
“Once they get pregnant, most of them don’t go back to school. This reduces their participation in economic development and gets revolving in circles of poverty. That’s what we are trying to eradicate,” Mumbo said.
“Once the girl is stuck in poverty cycles, then the child who is born out of this incident is equally stuck in a cycle of poverty. We are trying to empower the girl to know that there is life beyond what has happened,” Mumbo said.
Mumbo said things do happen, and how one responds to an incident or situation can change what comes up in his or her life.
“Also, addressing teenage pregnancy will ensure that we contribute towards SDG 4 on having gender equality in Kenya. Once we ensure that girls are able to get an education, then there will be able to compete in the job market together with their male counterparts, able to get leadership opportunities and actively participate in society without being discriminated against,” she said.
Murigi said they were happy to host FAWE Kenya as the education sector in Machakos County.
“We held this workshop for stakeholders so that we look into the issue of girl child pregnancy in Machakos. We are happy to be supported to ensure these girls who get pregnant are brought on board and go to school and if of age, can also join TVET to gain skills that can earn them a living,” Murigi said.
She said education was the key equalizer in the community where girls are able to get breakthroughs and earn decent livelihoods.