International Day of the Girl: Kibera School for Girls
Two years ago, the United Nations declared October 11th as International Day of the Girl to raise awareness about gender inequality around the world.
International Day of the Girl is a day when activist groups come together to highlight, discuss and advance rights and opportunities for girls everywhere. While raising awareness has taken us a long way in recent years, action and education have taken us further in our efforts to help girls become women who can take charge of their lives. Among the many organizations working on girls’ issues, we’re inspired by the number of men spearheading programs to elevate girls in their communities. One of these is Kennedy Odede, founder and CEO of Shining Hope for Communities, (SHOFCO) and the Kibera School for Girls located three miles outside of Nairobi in Kenya.
Kibera is Africa’s largest slum and home for a million residents, more than half of who are under age 25. About 43 percent of girls don’t attend school at all and more than 60 percent start their educations late. About 54 percent of women living in Kibera have no source of income. Life expectancy for Kibera residents is estimated at 35 years of age. The maternal mortality rate in Kenya is approximately 400 deaths for every 100,000 live births. Odede grew up in the Kibera slums surrounded by poverty and desperation, where too many friends died young and members of his own family suffered violence. That’s what inspired him to say, “Enough is enough.” Starting with money he earned as a kid working in a factory for a dollar a day, Odede began a movement to improve opportunities and education within his community by focusing on girls.
The Kibera School for Girls began in 2009 and currently serves 180 girls. The opening of a new building in 2012 means it will eventually be able to provide 400 girls a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade education — tuition free. The curriculum includes math, literacy, science, social studies art, music, poetry, debate, yoga, community service projects, and field trips. The school also provides a nutrition program, uniforms, school supplies, health care and sanitation services — everything girls need to succeed in school.
Odede says that initially, the community didn’t welcome the idea of girls’ education. “We knew there would be resistance. Many people didn’t see any point because that’s not how women live. The only way to encourage families to let their girls go to school was to offer education along with other services they needed.” That’s why SHOFCO developed the girls’ school within a community services model that includes primary health and preventative care, pre-and-postpartum care, child immunizations, comprehensive HIV care, family planning, cervical cancer screening, gender-based violence response, and a child nutrition program plus a community library and computer center, computer, adult literacy and business skills classes, girls empowerment groups, soccer teams, and group savings and loans programs. The center also hosts mobilization meetings around issues that affect all slum residents such as rape, violence, and lack of opportunity. By engaging everyone in the community — men, women, and children, and providing critical support unavailable elsewhere in the Kibera slum, acceptance of the Kibera Girls School grew.
Now that his first class of students at the Kibera School for Girls is in the 5th grade, Odede says he’s seeing a huge difference in both the girls and in the community. “These girls are confident, disciplined and smart. When they go home, they teach their own families. Their families are dedicated to making sure their daughters and the community center succeed. Now, men who previously didn’t want their daughters to go to school tell other men to educate their girls.” The girls are lifting up the whole community.
How did a Kibera slum kid become an advocate for girls’ empowerment? As the oldest of eight children, raised by a woman he calls a “strong mother,” Odede learned early that it was women who made the difference in a family’s survival. “I grew up seeing how hard women worked and what a very hard life they had. In the slums there’s no electricity or water and women have many children. I saw that women worked hard all day taking care of their families even when there was no food. Many of the men spent their time sitting around, drinking and playing games. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair, but even as a little child I still thought there were men’s jobs and women’s jobs. When I was a little boy my mother made me do dishes. I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that. That’s a woman’s job.’ My mother said, ‘around here, there’s no boy. There’s no girl. We are equal.’ I did the dishes. I didn’t like it but I respected her for that. When I was 12-years-old, my mother organized a women’s group to discuss community issues. The men weren’t happy about that, but every time they gathered the women would get something done. I learned it was women who made things happen.”
This was the beginning of Odede’s education in women’s empowerment. He says he later learned about feminism in the United States. Despite having no formal education in Kenya, Odede applied andreceived a full-scholarship to Wesleyan University and graduated in 2012. He has received countless awards and was included in Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30: Social Entrepreneurs Class of 2014 for his work with SHOFCO and his dedication to empowering fellow Kenyans. We’re honored to give Kennedy Odede a shout out on International Day of the Girl for taking action to empower girls in the Kibera slums.
SHOFCO is also featured as an effective response to women’s oppression in Kenya in Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s new book, A Path Appears.
Check the book out on Amazon smile, where proceeds from eligible purchases will benefit Every Mother Counts when you sign up with us.
