A Holistic Approach to Girl-Centered Programming; Ending FGM and Child Marriage with Msichana Empowerment Kuria

Meeting with partners and hearing stories about their work with communities on the ground is always an opportunity to strengthen our belief in the need to support Community-driven Organizations (CDOs) and amplify the impact they have in their communities, especially among adolescent girls.

This story begins with a 19-year-old girl; Robi Tingo, born in the rural parts of the Kuria community in Kenya.

Her story is of a young girl turned changemaker at 19. As we listen to this story unfold, we continue to appreciate the strong ties that our partner community-driven organizations have in their communities and their dedication to developing adolescent girls’ agency and uplifting girls from vulnerable backgrounds to pursue their education.

Robi’s story, however, cannot be told without telling the Msichana Empowerment Kuria story; the result of her resilience and the beginning of this change story.

If you’ve heard about the Kuria community, then you’re familiar with the harmful practices known to be carried out within the community. Girls aged 8 to 17 in the Kuria community are often subjected to FGM as a right of passage to becoming a woman. Once a girl undergoes the ‘cutting’ she is constantly reminded that she’s a woman and is then subjected to child marriage.

Having been born and raised in Kuria, Robi had first-hand experience of the challenges of being a girl, growing up ‘uncut’ in the community. In 2013, at the age of 19, Robi began an informal mentorship space for adolescent girls where she hoped to give girls in her community a chance at a better life and to create a safe space for vulnerable girls to share their stories and develop their agency to change the situation in the Kuria community.

Recognizing the need to reach more young women and girls in the community, Robi’s mentorship space evolved into Msichana Empowerment Kuria; an organization that now serves more than 300,000 community members through different initiatives.

‘Community-driven organizations best understand the needs of the community and are best placed to provide solutions to these needs.’

This has been AMPLIFY Girls’ mantra and the very core of our partnership with community-driven organizations like Msichana Empowerment Kuria; in working towards better outcomes for girls.

Girls' issues like FGM and child marriage, are often multi-faceted and can only be dealt with holistically. Recognizing that change must happen at all levels, Msichana Empowerment Kuria applies a holistic approach to young women and girls’ empowerment. Through their girl-centered programming, Msichana Kuria engages young women and girls in dialogue sessions where girls get to speak about what is happening in their community and learn about the impact of FGM and child marriage on girls’ lives and their future.

Msichana Empowerment Kuria leverages in-school and out-of-school programming to reach out to the girls. These programs co-designed and led by girls, also target the mothers, youth, men, and boys in the community engaging them in intergenerational dialogues focused on shifting the mindset that has long prevented girls in Kuria from pursuing their education and achieving their dreams. Annually, Msichana Kuria engages six villages in Kuria and has 30 girls per village enrolled in their programming.

Since AMPLIFY Girls’ inception, we’ve witnessed the incredible work that community-driven organizations like Msichana Kuria are doing in their communities and among girls and have since appreciated their innovative work in challenging barriers to girls’ development. This work, however, does not come without challenges.

Msichana Empowerment Kuria tells us that shifting community mentality on deeply rooted cultural practices takes time. Shifting cultural norms and practices also takes time and resources which remains limited and as such, they have since had to reduce the number of villages they reach out to - to maximize impact.

Solving girls' issues like FGM and child marriage cannot only be solved by educating girls on their rights and harmful practices. While community-driven organizations are doing their best to develop girls’ agency to change their lives and pursue their education, we recognize that they cannot achieve their desired impact without direct resourcing. Girls will continue to fall through the cracks, become vulnerable to these harmful practices, and drop out of school if we do not act now and support CDOs’ capacity to reach more girls, especially in marginalized and crisis-affected communities.

Learn more about Msichana Empowerment Kuria and be part of their change story.