Girls use vacation to gain leadership, health knowledge

Girls training  aimed at equipping the girls with the right information to navigate the often-confusing adolescence stage with ease.

By CHARLES NGENO

Following the ban on holiday tuition by the Ministry of Education, most pupils now have little to do during the school holiday.

In urban areas, most of them throng cybercafés to play computer games while in rural areas, some help their parents with various chores including working on the farm.  

The situation, however, is different for over 200 girls from different primary schools in Transmara, who have been taking a health and leadership course at Enkakenya Centre of Excellence in Enoosaen.

According to the Centre’s Executive Director Dr Kakenya Ntaya, the camp is intended to equip the girls with life skills, an area she says, that is usually glossed over in the school calendar.

“Our schools are very limited in what they teach because teachers only concentrate on the examinable subjects,” said Ntaya, adding that it will be meaningless for pupils to excel in exams and fail in life.

She says the camp targets adolescents or those about to enter puberty, a stage that is usually associated with emotional turbulence.

“The objective of this camp is to build these young girls’ self esteem and sense of self-worth. This gives them confidence to open up about issues affecting them,” says Ntaya.

When Education visited the camp, the girls were being trained on assertiveness and boundary setting by the ‘I am Worth Defending’ group. Some of the topics included how to ward off would-be sexual attackers as well as refusing to be subjected to female genital mutilation.

Maggie Mbatia from ‘I am Worth Defending’ says they train girls in self-defence to fend off potential rapists.

“Self-defence is anything that you do to protect yourself. It can be verbal or physical and this is what we want the girls to know,” says Mbatia.

She adds that FGM and early marriages take place during the holidays and that is what partly informed the timing of the camp.

“We want these girls to know their rights, what they want and how to communicate it in the right way. We also want to raise their awareness on existing laws and policies that protect their rights,” says Mbatia.

She reveals that at first, the girls are shy talking about taboo subjects like sex, but they are gradually introduced to such topics through plays and are also being encouraged to suggest issues they would like to be addressed.

14-year-old Sheilla Koisiala from Moita Primary School says initially she did not feel comfortable discussing the so-called taboo subjects but has now overcome the shyness. She says she is now aware of her rights and will stand up for them.