Blog
£10,000 donation from The Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust to fund girl-friendly schools in rural Kenya
We are delighted to announce that our recent funding application to The Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust was successful! We are absolutely thrilled to have received a generous donation of £10,000 towards our work with girls in rural Kenya.
What will this grant pay for?
We plan to develop and expand our Success for Girls in Schools programme through promoting Girl Friendly Schools and increasing parental and community support for, and awareness of, girls’ education, gender equality and children’s rights.
Project aims:
- Increase recruitment, retention, and performance of girls in school
- Improve the quality of primary education
- Prevent and reduce School Related Gender Based Violence SRGBV
- Improve attitudes towards girls’ education and rights
We aim to achieve these aims by:
- Expanding our Girls Support Group activities to reach over 5,000 girls
- Integrating girls’ football and computer training into a full programme of activities
- Increasing our School Related Gender Based Violence (SRGBV) research to implement effective strategies to keep girls safe
- Establishing a Learning and Resource Centre (LRC) to provide access for teachers and students to teaching resources and facilities for study and training.
- Using the expertise of our team to share good practice across the county.
- Embedding the concept of Girl Friendly Schools with key local stakeholders in schools and the community via a network of local leaders.
- Introducing training with boys, male teachers and male school committee members in all 28 primary schools in Ndhiwa.
Our activities will contribute to a long-term change in community attitudes and behaviour towards girls and improve the quality of education for over 5,000 children in the short term, and many more over 3 years. Girls will feel safe and secure in school and have increased knowledge and skills relating to their rights and future role within society. Our work with the Girls’ Support Group includes strategies for staying safe, assertiveness, confidence building, girls’ rights and the value of education.
Our research over the last 3 years has identified SRGBV as the most significant barrier to girls’ education. 57% of women & girls in Nyanza have experienced physical violence and 31.6% sexual violence, the highest in Kenya. Practices such as child marriage, wife inheritance & polygamy mean that girls have few rights & no voice. Focusing our work in schools & communities on SRGBV will challenge deeply entrenched traditional attitudes towards girls and have a lasting impact.
If you would like to learn more about this project, or any of our work, please feel free to get in touch – we would love to hear from you!
Thank you to The Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust!