EBA-JumpStart

We have done a baseline survey in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and we are able to identify the salient issues affecting girls' education; access,  retention and transition. This was in 110 regions called Sub-Counties in the most marginalised and low-resourced households. 

The survey found that a high percentage of class 7 and 8 parents were aged between 21-30 years that accounting for 81.3 % of children in classes 7 and 8. Of greater concern is the fact that more than 40% of the pupils in these classes were overage which brings the age of some of the mothers at the time of delivery to around 8 or 9 years.  The existence of underage mothers has huge implications on education in that: Learners born to underage mothers would have flawed parenting resulting from the mothers’ lack of readiness for the child at the time. 

Transactional sex is rampant through gifts and free rides from motorbike riders/ sponsors. The girls get pregnant and eventually dropped out of school. The girls become stigmatised as they became mothers with no source of income and are perceived to be a burden to their parents. Some of the parents disown their daughters due to pregnancy leading to early marriages or desertion from homes. Some are victims of INCEST. become disowned and thrown out of home even when the culprit is the father or relative. 

We aim to create a safe space that is multi-dimensional that offers hope, continuity of schooling and livelihood for the victims of Sex and Gender-Based Violence and to some extent their mothers who many a time are left to take care of the babies amidst livelihood challenges.    

An integrated hub that is inclusive. We have the teenage mother, the child and the guardian/caregiver and "teachers":

1. For those girls who would like to continue with formal education, we can enrol them in the neighbouring schools where they shall be comfortable. If not we shall have the hub gather all the curriculum materials on the desktops or printed them into offline PDF, where there are accessible to all girls. For those not willing to return to formal schooling, we shall liaise and enrol them with vocational training colleges within the locality after we have already prepared them with basic skills; Social Emotional Learning skills, Psychosocial skills, decision-making skills. 
2. 1. We also aim to introduce 21 st century skills for all girls that shall include basic digital tools for communication with teachers and peers to remain relevant. 
   2. all girls can graduate from the centre voluntarily when they are able to hold themselves in the community.
3. The child is left in the hub under the care of the grandmothers/or caregivers employed who are enrolled on a livelihood business school where they are taught basic business skills. The seed project money is provided to the graduates on a small by small basis or depending on the business need. Some of the business concepts shall entail products that can be used in the hub and some for the local market. Poultry, making washable sanitary pads, small farming of the local vegetables, uniform making, but encourage innovative and creative implementable local ideas. 
4. They are also entrusted with the feeding program for babies and teenage mothers.     
5. From the Covid-19 pandemic experiences, the hub will serve as a training centre for untrained teachers from the informal settlements that have continued to teach without formal TPD. When schools closed and learning shifted virtual, many of these teachers became jobless. Their small schools shut down. Some have remained in schools, hoping that no other disaster of such a magnitude occurs again. We have already trained some in pedagogical skills through what we call Teacher Education Done Differently (TEDD). We liaise with the University of Nairobi Teacher trainees. 
6. Some of the girls shall benefit from this training and eventually can start a small early childhood centre that is income-generating for the hub's sustainability. This will accommodate the babies and can also attract the community to bring their babies for schooling. 

Since we are educators we are looking to establish a model that is sustainable, scalable and replicable

Kenyan society is very harsh on teenage mothers and the emotional and social effects on such mothers are long term. Some of the girls are products of mothers married off in early marriage rites so the practice is perpetual. They are victims of sexual abuse by adults including teachers, brothers, fathers which is coupled with a conspiracy of silence.

An education policy that allows girls to stay or return to school after becoming pregnant or giving birth is very positive but many girls remain ridiculed and stigmatized and the majority don't have social network support. The policy is very silent on the girls' babies' well-being and the school and home environment to offer social support. Many girls are left on their own.

We shall offer an integrated approach for the girl, the baby and the caregiver(mother to the girl) as well. Through our integrated approach, we shall create a sense of normalcy, self-esteem and sustainable approaches to the challenges 

Through the Ministry of education, we are in a team that has trained 7852 teachers, 220 sub-regional deputy directors of education, 120 regional directors of education, over 25 Ministry of Education HQ officers and semi-autonomous government agencies, 500 local administrators on GBV, we have held community dialogues in 110 sub-regions on issues affecting access, retention and transitions, yet the numbers of teenage pregnancies and early marriages keep on rising especially in the period between 2020 and today.  We have more than 115 WhatsApp groups that are teacher based formed in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the main teachers' employer, the Teachers Service Commission, the discussions and reporting of cases of GBV and teenage pregnancies are disturbing. 

We have tried to mitigate albeit in a short term way, by rescuing the most vulnerable and victims of incest to remove them from culprits who are relatives many times. We have done in voluntarily basis as we keep on establishing sustainable solutions. We have acquired most facilities like desktops and other infrastructural logistics. 

We are now developing materials on SEL and PSS and liaising with other government departments especially child welfare for other legal implications. We are passionate, we have the knowledge and the goodwill to solve these issues affecting teenage mothers. Our goal is set on establishing collaborative frameworks to scale our thinking. We have already created a springboard within the communities and we have the right people to work with us especially the local administrators. 

We have done a baseline survey in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and we are able to identify the salient issues affecting girls' education; access,  retention and transition. This was in 110 regions called Sub-Counties in the most marginalised and low-resourced households. 

The survey found that a high percentage of class 7 and 8 parents were aged between 21-30 years that accounting for 81.3 % of children in classes 7 and 8. Of greater concern is the fact that more than 40% of the pupils in these classes were overage which brings the age of some of the mothers at the time of delivery to around 8 or 9 years.  The existence of underage mothers has huge implications on education in that: Learners born to underage mothers would have flawed parenting resulting from the mothers’ lack of readiness for the child at the time. 

Transactional sex is rampant through gifts and free rides from motorbike riders/ sponsors. The girls get pregnant and eventually dropped out of school. The girls become stigmatised as they became mothers with no source of income and are perceived to be a burden to their parents. Some of the parents disown their daughters due to pregnancy leading to early marriages or desertion from homes. Some are victims because of a lack of less than a dollar with sanitary pads. 

Many of these girls are young and desperate and having been born in low-resourced households can exacerbate the intergenerational vicious circle of poverty if nothing is done to create an innovative and creative solution that is sustainable

If we have to achieve SDG4 by 2030, we must have intentional and deliberate innovative solutions for all girls. Teenage pregnancies, early marriages and cultural practices play negatively on girls and this has been exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic. Our integrated hub would create a second chance for girls who are victims of GBV resulting in school dropouts. When a girl gets a child or is married early they lose hope and some are not able to pick up again. We hope to offer an integrated solution that has a life skills component, livelihood, 21st-century skills including basic digital literacy and coding to create innovative and creative STEM pathways. with the integrated hub, the girls will fill safely again be able to exploit their potential without stigma and ridicule. This shall be accompanied by rigorous dialogues in the communities carefully selected, especially the ones that have rampant numbers of teenage pregnancies, early marriages and female genital mutilation. Some of the solutions shall be homegrown and therefore we shall employ bottom-up participatory approaches where top-bottom policy implementation has failed many times  

• Hold a community mapping and needs assessment, infrastructural planning, management plan and rescuing of girls in the year 1 
• design a collaborative framework for referrals and partnerships
• create a safe environment for girls    
• reduce teenage pregnancies in the targeted region
• reduce early marriages in the targeted region by having sensitisation and dialogue meetings with key stakeholders and opinion leaders
• Return all young girls to continuous education and livelihood
• Create a management model and an exit strategy for the hub
• Develop business plan model for sustainability 

• reduce teenage pregnancies in the targeted region by 2 % in year 1 and by 5 % in 5 years
• reduce early marriages in the targeted region by 2 % in year 1 and by 5% in 5 years
• Return all young girls to continuous education and livelihood
• hold 50 community dialogues in the first year and over 200 dialogues in the 5 year period
• Train 20 teachers to help in the hub and start a child centre by 5th  year
• Start a livelihood business class for the caregivers
•  start selling business class products to the hub and the community 

We shall use a retrospective framework to establish the needs assessment. The 2019 Ministry of Education baseline report forms the basis for the framework, as it contains a detailed description of the problems and context, and describes the rationale for the interventions.  This will help in establishing what are the fundamental issues behind some of the behaviour and map out the worst-hit regions on teenage pregnancies and early marriages. We shall identify if there are any partners offering solutions and capacity and areas of collaboration. The needs assessment will add to this document and evidence base, to facilitate the design of the new integrated hub. We shall mainly consider the major recommendations, as the lessons learned from the baseline – to be revealed by needs assessment  – will provide arguments to drop, maintain or add components and help to refocus and create an advocacy communique for policy. 

1. We shall have a social change goal

• education contributes to inclusivity and equity by ensuring quality             learning for victims of GBV, teenage pregnancies and early marriages

2. Systematic Change objectives, Working with the partners to advocate for the rights of girls

3. EBA-JumpStart outcomes

•   Change of Mindsets
•   Innovative solutions 
•   Institutionalisation and policy
•   Scale

We shall use all locally available materials for our solutions integrated with basic low-cost technology like SMS, WhatsApp, offline PDF materials, and use small solar radios that are locally available and local radio stations to pass the advocacy messages and we can use them to have community dialogues with key stakeholders.   

I lead - female

2 Ladies, program officers

2 gentlemen interns

Not yet having products

We have been training targeted communities on issues of GBV and culture 

The sustainability of the hub is planned to be as follows:

• All activities will be jointly planned with community elders, implemented and monitored with relevant local authorities to ensure a high degree of ownership of standards, processes, and project achievements.

• The project will complement ongoing initiatives implemented in close collaboration with national institutions and partners

• Any training materials will be developed as standard materials for sector-wide use with government authorities and relevant beneficiary groups. 

• The formation of strategic partnerships within the wider education sector will ensure that the project outcomes are amplified and sustained by both partners and help develop a model that could be used in future.

• The project will help develop a network of experts at local, national and regional levels to secure greater knowledge sharing.

We have funded our activities from seed grantees from well-wishers and most of the major activities like the baseline survey were funded by the Ministry of Education. Our education advisor has been working in a consortium of 2 other organisations, TREVA/ EGAP and she has been ploughing back her earnings to the organisations. We are developing a business plan that will us be generating income as we continue with the hub