On the 12th of November, Hivisasa published a story about an under-resourced school in Kisumu county’s Obunga slum. This story as a follow-up to that original story as Hivisasa seeks to make a positive impact in alleviating the resource issues overwhelm MM Shah Primary School.
From the Obunga story, Hivisasa highlighted the struggles parents and students face in pursuit of education slums. It emerged that parents and students faced challenges ranging from inadequate funds, lack of food, and sanitary towels.
Hivisasa established that parents were struggling to keep children in school since they could not afford the extras expenses like transport and lunch. This is the situation in other slums across the country. To alleviate this problem, several organizations have taken up the role of ensuring children stay in school by offering basic requirements like food and sanitary towels for girls.
Data from the Ministry of Education indicates that a girl that is absent from school for four days in 28 days (month) loses 13 learning days, equivalent to two weeks of learning in every school term. All this due to lack of sanitary towels.
Save the Children, through their Child Rights Governance program, is an active lobbying body that aims to ensure the government meets its obligations to uphold children’s rights to education, regardless of their socio-economic background.
The government has been involved in the distribution of sanitary towels among students from poor backgrounds including informal settlements within the country. However, inadequate funding remains a challenge.
As a result, organizations like ZanaAfrica Foundation have stepped in to supplement the government’s efforts by distributing sanitary towels to underprivileged adolescent students. On the other hand, the government has also launched the school feeding program.
The program is being rolled in partnership with the World Food Programme. Organizations like Moving Mountains also runs a wide variety of educational programs and capacity building initiatives across Kenya, from the slums to rural areas in need of development.
Currently, Moving Mountains provides uniforms, books, stationery, counselling, and mentoring for select students. For secondary schools, Moving Mountains can cover school fees, transport, books, uniforms, stationery, mentoring, and counselling for select students.