For this week’s blog we’d like to tell you about Becky and how her life and lives of other girls like her in Londiani are being changed and improved with your support.

Becky is 11 years old and she was born on March 8th – a very significant date as this is also the date chosen to celebrate International Women’s Day! She has a little sister named Faith. Her dad is a truck driver and her mother is a farmer.

As Becky grows up Friends of Londiani want to continue to support her and her friends and neighbours. Kedowa primary, where Becky goes to school, would like to become part of the Girls for Girls programme and support all their girls to stay in school and not miss out days when they have their periods.

Lack of access to sanitary products and facilities is one of the main reasons why girls in Londiani drop out of school. The Girls for Girls programme is now operating in 22 schools and impacting 1207 girls. Friends of Londiani plan to add another 10 schools this year and reach over 1700 girls. The programme is about more than making sanitary products available to girls in schools – it is a programme that educates, delivers financial empowerment, and impacts on everyone, not just girls & women, by highlighting the issue openly in a community based approach.

If Becky and her friends get to finish their education then they have better knowledge and skills including economic skills; they can make more informed decisions about their health; they can build their self-esteem; marry when they choose; have a greater understanding of health issues and they can raise healthy families.

Giving Becky and girls like her the best possible chance of staying at school and finishing their education has a ripple effect that spreads beyond the individual girl out into her community and to future generations.

If you would like to volunteer with Friends of Londiani in Kenya and see these programmes up close and personal click here for more information.

Photo: Girls from Baraka Secondary School pictured with their income generating project growing crops for cash to support G4G in their school to be sustainable