Child brides get a second chance to go to school

By ESTHER KAHINGA 

NAIROBI, KENYA: Halima* is a jovial Form One girl in who starts by saying  "If it were not for Shangia, I do not know where I would be. Life had become unbearable."

Halima was only 13 years old and in Standard 8 when she was married off to a man old enough to be her father, after all her parents did not see the value of educating a girl. The year was 2011. A few months later she was holding a baby in her hands that ushered her to a new stage — motherhood. The responsibility of taking care of a young one weighed her down and she often wondered what she did to deserve such suffering. She envied her friends who had continued with education and had joined secondary school. She desperately wanted to speak to someone who would hear her out but when she looked around no one fit the bill.

Then one day, like a miracle from heaven, three women walked into her matrimonial home and asked about her welfare, at last some saviours had come, she thought. She wasted no time in pouring out her heart telling of the suffering she was going through and how she longed to go back to school.

The three women later went and visited Halima’s parents and informed them that Halima had a right to education and that by marrying her off at an early age, they were simply denying her that right and could easily find their way to jail.

The women took their time to advice Halima’s parents on their responsibilities as parents and the rights their children ought to enjoy.

After a few more visits, Halima’s parents agreed to return the dowry, reinstated her to school and took in her baby. The three women were community health volunteers from the Shangia Improvement Team – Jicho Pevu (Investigative eye).

Halima sat her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination in November 2012, scored 340 marks out of 500 and is now in secondary school. 

Halima is not the only girl who has benefitted from the efforts of the improvement team at Shangia Community Unit (CU). Six other girls have been rescued from early marriages and taken back to school.

Shangia CU in Mariakani town, 34 kilometres northwest of Mombasa works with the Aids  Population Health Integrated Assistance (APHIA) Plus Nairobi Coast in assisting 1,225 orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC). The Shangia improvement team brings together members of the community who possess valuable skills in addressing the common challenges children face.

 It consists of a teacher, community health workers, a nurse, a CU member, a representative of the provincial administration — chief, a pastor, imam, a village elder, a representative of the area advisory committee, a business person, guardians and two OVC. Their responsibility is to identify challenges faced by OVC in Mariakani, develop solutions based on locally available resources, implement the solutions and follow-up to make sure the livelihoods of children and their guardians improve.

The challenges are identified by using a standard tool that reveals gaps in the services children receive. The initial assessment done by Shangia revealed that most children did not attend school regularly due to inadequate food in households which forced children to get involved in small businesses such as hawking porridge to truck drivers so as to buy food.  Other children engaged in child labour and would fetch water for their neighbours at a fee while others were employed as farm hands.

Another major issue was the sale of the local beer from home and beer customers would lure children into relationships that saw them drop out of school.

Mariakani is semi-arid and food security is usually a major challenge.

To address these challenges, the improvement team, during a chief’s baraza (meeting) enlightened the community on the importance of educating children and the negative effects of involving them in small businesses. At the end of the meeting, the chief declared that guardians of children found selling porridge or water would be summoned to the police station to answer to child labour charges.

The improvement team then mobilised guardians who were selling mnazi (a local brew) to come together and agree on a central location, away from their homes, where they would conduct their business. They chose a place that was named ‘Kwa Mary Wehe’ , an area where children are not allowed to access not even to collect money for food or any other urgent need.

Since the improvement team started following up on school drop outs in May 2012, 49 children have been taken back to school. The team monitors their performance through impromptu school visits to ensure children attend school regularly and discuss their conduct and performance with teachers.

Because of the close supervision, nine other children who sat the same national examination as Halima scored above 300 marks, something that was previously unheard of in the area.

   To adequately address the challenges identified in education, the team needed to ensure families in the Mariakani area were food secure.

The team also reached out to World Vision to train the guardians on good farming practices and the crops that would thrive in the area. Using this knowledge, they mobilised a group of community members to dig a dam and use the water to grow okra, tomatoes, cowpeas, capsicum, green grams and maize.

Later the area councillor, impressed by the success of the first group, sponsored the sinking of another dam and today the area has five dams belonging to different groups that do communal farming, save the proceeds in a chama (group of people who come together to achieve a common goal) and then lend to members with a 10 per cent  service charge to start income generating activities such as selling clothes, omena (small fish), paraffin, charcoal and soap making.

They also use the proceeds to buy farm inputs and water for irrigation when the dams dry out during prolonged dry seasons. It is interesting to note that even members buy the produce harvested from the group farming activities which boosts their savings. 

The five farms have become a major source of food for people in Mariakani area. 

The men were also not left behind and they formed two groups with 15 members each that bought ploughing oxen which they hire to the community to generate income. 

One hundred and ninety one guardians are actively involved in the group farming activities and households are no longer dependent on well wishers for every day survival as was the case before. Today, parents are able to pay school fees even for vocational training, buy school uniforms and books for their children, pay hospital bills, feed their families on a balanced diet, repair and build new houses and meet other basic household needs.

 Through targeted sensitization meetings with the community, the team has taught guardians about balanced diet, increased the community’s access to nutritious food through the group farms and established a linkage service with World Vision who continue to provide support on good farming practices. The previously common diet of ugali and omena (stiff porridge and small fish) now consists of vegetables harvested from the group farms and fruits resulting in a healthier community.

 The team’s interventions have gone beyond the vulnerable children; they deal with to transforming the community. The three public primary schools in the area are now working towards creating an environment where children know their rights and teachers provide the support that children need to develop socially, emotionally, spiritually and academically. Education has also become a community affair and parents no longer keep their children at home for either lack of school fees or due to cultural beliefs like it is better to educate a boy than a girl.

 For a long time, the area chief and district commissioner had been unable to tame the child labour menace but now through the intervention of the improvement team, this has been solved and parents no longer engage children in small businesses to generate income. In recognition of the work done by Jicho Pevu in reforming the community, a Jicho Pevu member now sits in the administrative meetings held at the district commissioner’s office. Jicho Pevu also has an outreach wing that educates the community on social ills using skits that are staged at market centres in Mariakani.

Parents in the community are proud of their improved livelihoods and attribute this to the solutions implemented by the improvement team. Neighbouring locations also noticed the transformation of the Mariakani community and as a result, three more improvement teams have been formed in the larger Kaloleni sub-county.

 Halima is now in Form One and because her parents are involved in the group farming activities and have a small business, they are able to pay her school fees. She is a bubbly girl who is grateful to the Shangia improvement team for giving her a new lease of life and an opportunity to pursue education so as to become a nurse in future.

*Names have been changed to conceal identity