Candle of Hope Foundation

Double burden of marginalization in teenage girls from North Eastern Kenya in accessing quality education remains a major challenge in the efforts to access to quality education and achievement of Sustainable Development Goal Number 4. The double burden is caused by the girls’ marginalization and the rising number of pregnancies and early marriages in these girls denying them the right to education. About 1 in every 5 adolescent girls has either had a live birth, or is pregnant with her first child. Rates increase rapidly with age: from 3% among girls at 15 years old, to 40% among girls at 19 years old.

To solve this challenge, this project seeks to build capacity of 50 teachers on coaching, mentorship, Gender and Social Inclusion pedagogy approaches including use of Information Communication Technology to remotely provide education to enable completion and transition. As such, the marginalized girls will have improved life chances.

Latest statistics on adolescents from the Demographic Health Survey (Republic of Kenya and KNBS, 2014) reveal that: Teen pregnancy and motherhood rates in Kenya stand at 18%. About 1 in every 5 adolescent girls has either had a live birth, or is pregnant with her first child. Rates increase rapidly with age: from 3% among girls at 15 years old, to 40% among girls at 19 years old.

This project seeks to solve the problem of equitable classrooms by marginalized pregnant teenage girls or teenage mothers from North Eastern Kenya to access quality and safe learning environments. This is going to be achieved by building the capacity of teachers on coaching, mentorship, Gender and Social Inclusion pedagogy approaches including use of Information Communication Technology to remotely provide education to enable school completion and transition.

Adolescent pregnancy and childbearing are common in Kenya. Almost a quarter of Kenyan women give birth by the age of 18, and nearly half by the age of 20. To realize the SDG No. 4 in Kenya, the teachers should be capacity build on pedagogies that facilitate provision of education remotely to the girls during pregnancy and child upbringing period through use of digital technology.

The project aims at training 50 teachers on ICT use and integration in teaching and learning.  The teachers will be trained on methods of preparation of differentiated content that is able to be understood easily by a student who has special needs in this case an expectant learner or a breastfeeding mother.

This will entail identification of the learning topics, development of the content and learning materials and align them in lessons as if they are going to conduct the lessons in a conventional classroom. Due to the nature of the of the students, the teachers will be trained on mentorships and coaching to be able to deliberately make efforts in meeting the emotional and psychological needs of this cadre of learners. To achieve this, the teachers will be trained use of 21st century teaching methodologies that are cognizant of diversity and inclusivity. Besides, the teachers will be trained both on online and offline lesson presentation skills to effectively deliver their lessons.

The content will be recorded by experts and stored digitally and through creation of a virtual learning platform the expectant girls and teenage mothers will be able to access the content by use of simple mobile phones. 

This project targets 5000 marginalized teenage girls aged 12-19 years, that are already marginalized in the 3 counties in North Eastern Kenya. These are girls with the following characteristics:-

• Child-headed households
• Total orphans
• Single parents
• Young mothers Girls who are likely to lose parental care
• Girls with disabilities

In addition, the project focuses on the girls that show the above features and are expectant or are young mothers who are breastfeeding and are out of school. The project is engaging these girls through another program on conflict dialogues in Northern Kenya where 200 women and young girls have been trained as peace Ambassadors by Candle of Hope Foundation. During the implementation of the peace program, the organization realized the gap of the teenage girls that were missing out school due to pregnancy and having given birth. The organization is engaging these beneficiaries through the ongoing peace dialogues for them to actively build their esteem through counselling and healing process. Through the conversations, the girls were able to express the trauma they go when they go back to the same school having given birth of being discriminated and said such marginalized them further. To seal this gap, this project seeks alternative pathways of provision of quality education to the teenage girls and the young mothers by training the teachers on use of technology to developed customized content that is appropriate to address the learning needs of these learners. The mentorship, coaching and Gender and Social Inclusion is paramount for the teachers to be sensitive when they developing the content and teaching in the physical classrooms where such learners are present.

With the help of the parents or guardians and the peace ambassadors, the project will reach out to these girls, ensure they are learning, transition and complete the education cycle. In the end, they will not be prone to early marriages that denies them to explore their full potential. As such, through this intervention their life chances will be improved.

The challenge is equitable classrooms where all the young learners have access to quality education and safe learning environment. The project targets teenage girls aged 12-19 yearns that are already marginalized and are either pregnant or breastfeeding. The solution is through building the capacity of teachers to provide quality education by use of mobile phones for them to learn in a safe environment free from discrimination and transition to complete education cycle. This protects the girls from further levels of marginalization through early marriages and victims of Sexual and Gender Based Violence. Thus they will have improved life chances.

The organization has already a program that is existing on peace dialogues targeting 2000 women and girls of Cushitic communities in North Eastern Kenya. During this stage, the challenge of access to quality education of pregnant girls and young mothers featured strongly and the project felt paramount to address this need. This will be started with a population of building the capacity of 50 teachers who will be capacity build on digital content development on online provision of education.

This is a key innovation to provision of education to pregnant teenage girls and lactating young mothers by use of technology. The existing technology generalizes the learning content to learners without basically focusing on the individual learners needs. This project proposes building the capacity of teachers on use of technology in development of differentiated content or customized content that puts into consideration the emotional and psychological needs of the learners. In addition, the learners who in this context who are expectant or breastfeeding will have safe learning environment that is free from discrimination and victimization from the teachers and their peers. 

These solution aims at serving 50 girls at baseline, then after 1 year it will serve 1000 girls and in 5 years it aims at serving 5000 pregnant girls and teenage mothers.

The project will use base-line to identify and map all the teenage pregnant girls and lactating teenage mothers. During the baseline, the project will assess the key learning areas and the barriers these girls are facing in access to quality education and safe learning environment. The base-line will also seek to establish the teachers knowledge gap along the digital divide in use of technology in teaching. A these findings will be documented in the base line report.

From these findings, the solution will seek to get the number of girls segregated by their characteristics( disability, poor, child-headed) are out of school due to pregnancy or having given birth. The project will the project will train 50 teachers who will be capacity build on mentorship, coaching and use of ICT. The solution will use the number of teachers who actively preparing and supporting content delivery for digital learning, the number of lessons, they have prepared and the assessments the set for preparation of the content. The project will also monitor the progress by knowing the number of girls that have enrolled for the digital learning platform, use the report cards to assess their performance, and those who have completed the set content and are ready to proceed to the next level. 

At the community level, the project will get the number of men have registered as Ambassadors of Change and are fighting the retrogressive cultural believes and practices that undermine the rights and position of women and girls. 

COHF also has a well-developed management structure that consists of a Board of Directors, Senior Management Team (SMT) and Executive Director who provides overall leadership and oversight. 
For this solution the project will engage 13 full-time staff, 2 part-time staff and 1 consultancy firm.

Candle of Hope Foundation (COHF), Programs Director, who is the leader of this solution, has professional qualifications in education and has over 15 years experience of management of educational programs for the vulnerable groups. Leading the Project Coordinator, the Project Officers and Community Development Workers have wealth of experience in implementation of education, health and human trafficking programs targeting the vulnerable members in the community.

Besides, COHF takes an all-inclusive approach to project implementation by working with communities to identify core needs and seek ways and means of solving the issues identified. 

For this solution, COHF will engage the teachers to identify their professional needs, identify the number of the the pregnant teenage girls and teenage mothers that have dropped out of school and the zones they come from. Afterwards, the Programs team together with the beneficiaries will conduct meetings for them to participate in formulation of the solutions to this problem. Guided by the communities inputs during public gatherings or participation, the program team led by the Programs Director will design the interventions geared towards solving the problems identified.

For ownership and sustainability, the project will engage and develop community structures or strengthen the existing structures and practices to implement the project or the solution. The structures will be at the community, school and system level.

Candle of Hope Foundation is cognizant of the diversity, Equity and Inclusion in all her operations. This is reflected in the organization's leadership where the Executive Director is a woman and in the Board of Directors composition, 2/3 of the Directors are women. In the staff and the recruitment of the staff the organization is deliberate in observing the gender a third rule and inclusion of persons with disabilities and youth as members of the community. For instance the staff has 3 youth and 2 persons living disabilities who will actively implement this project or solution.

To this end, this solution targets girls that are already marginalized (from households living under abject poverty as characterized by difficult to raise schools fees/levies or support educational costs and those living with disability), are pregnant or have given birth. Marginalization, pregnancy and young motherly are the barriers that would threaten retention, learning and transition. The project thus targets them with an aim to retain them in learning through supported digital learning, transition and complete the education cycle. This support will equitably direct to both girls expectant girls and the lactating teenage mothers from families with both men and women, boys and girls. Vetting and enrolling them into the program is equitable and unbiased. 

The major barrier to solving the challenge is funding and changing the retrogressive cultural beliefs that jeopardize women rights and their position. This application is therefore made to create a network that is able to draw the inspiration of providing education to teenage girls and teenage mothers through a safe nurturing environment for them to have improved life chances. Through the various prizes, this is a best fit to receive such funding to bring meaning to life to those at verge of loosing the meaning.

Candle of Hope is implementing programs with main focus in :-

Community Resilience against Food Insecurity:

Our major focus has been carrying out programs geared towards sustainable food security and livelihoods program for marginalized communities. We focus on strengthening and building on community-led solutions, enhancing coping mechanisms and mitigating the effect of climate change.

 Governance/Gender Equality Diversity and Inclusion Programs

The program empowers and creates a space for women, youth, Persons with Disabilities and the marginalized to advocate for their rights and strengthen their social organizations.  This program focuses on women’s economic and political empowerment, the reproductive health rights concentrating on FGM and teenage pregnancy.  In addition, the program promotes women and youth in combating violence extremism with focus on the prevention measures. 

Countering Human Trafficking:

The third aspect of our programming promotes the fight against human trafficking. We tackle human trafficking through: Prevention, Protection and Prosecution.

Health and Nutrition Programs

Maternal & Child Health and Nutrition programs focuses on young child feeding program and malnutrition, emergency food security and livelihoods intervention focusing on social safety nets, care for child development (CCD) and nutrition initiatives.

 Access to Education

This program focuses on increasing access to quality Basic Education/Alternative Education Program (AEP) for children.  AEP in particular target children who miss out of formal education due to conflict related challenges (IDPs, Refugees/Returnees) or marginalized groups such as nomadic communities. Emphasis is given to promoting participation of girl child in basic education. 

Implementation of these programs, they require the above cited

Candle of Hope foundation looks forward in partnering with organizations in resource mobilization in form of grants, for human capital development and foster collaboration for cross learning and advocacy.

Candle of Hope Foundation qualifies for this prize through the proposed solution that aims at improving life chances of 5000 marginalized girls who are faced by double marginalization. This will be achieved through building the capacity of the teachers in mentorship, coaching and ICT use in Teaching and Learning. The teachers will develop customized content that is meeting the needs of the pregnant girls and young mothers from the existing curriculum, record and stored digitally. The teachers will also be trained on how to create a software and develop an application guided a by a consultant on how to share the developed content on the online platform for the targeted to access it through mobile phones. Thus project will use the finds in purchasing mobile phones or tablets that these girls are able to remotely learn from home. 

The project will also ensure these girls are interacting in virtual classrooms by having pre-recorded teacher support lessons through webinars and zoom sessions for cross learning and clarifications. Such opportunities ensures inspiration for them to continue learning and complete education taking various career pathways. Through the theory of change, the baseline, mid-line and end-line findings will be provided opportunity to address gaps and document the lessons learnt that can be used to influence policy in education sector. The findings are also useful in implementing this project to a wider scale or in other the country and other regions.