Women Empowerment

The Kajiado Mentorship Camp Phase One under the theme #empowerakenyangirl aimed at empowering the rescued girls from 5 different rescue centres within Central Kajiado.The 260 girls aged 7-24 years are survivors of sexual abuse, Female Genital Mutilation(FGM) and early/forced marriages still largely practised in communities such as Maasai Community in Kenya. This camp brought to our understanding that what seems so obvious and so rightful to you is not for everyone out there. We trained the girls about the Sexual Reproductive Health(SRH), life skills and self awareness.It was a life-changing, transformative and inspiring moment.

Francis, a third year student pursuing Gender and Development Studies at Kenyatta University and a volunteer at DWB, sadly narrates how gender stereotyping in his culture denied his sisters the opportunity to access education.

“Having been brought up in a patriarchal family with most powers vested on men, I have grown up witnessing a lot of injustices done to women and girls. Most of these injustices are culturally determined. One of the things I have seen and broken my heart is seeing my own blood sisters denied the opportunity to go to school because they are women and according to our culture, women cannot be as brave as men and therefore, educating them will be a waste of resources.”

It is very painful, yes very painful to see girls of 10years old and below being forced to undergo FGM all in the name of traditions claiming that they are reducing the sexual feeling of the girls. These girls are usually still in primary schools therefore these automatically means that after the practice the girls will be forced to drop out of school and therefore get married at a very young age.DWB Foundation under its program Community Mentorship Camp(CMC) aims at ensuring that the rescued girls become the change agents in the community through various trainings such as life skills, sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) training, soft skills and entrepreneurship training.