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Title: : CAPACITATING YOUNG WOMEN AT RISKTO PARTICIPATE IN ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY TO REDUCE POVERTY.
Location:
Categories: Child & Youth Rights
Poverty
Human Rights
Gender Equality
Status:
In Progress
Timeline:
Ongoing
Description:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In most developing countries the youth represent half of the total population and up to 60-70 percent in countries whereby HIV/AIDS has decimated the adult population. Most of these young people especially young girls find themselves facing more challenges, more pressing needs than before. Demographic and health surveys indicate that a third of young women have already had a child by the age of 18 in age group 15-24 half of them have already had a child. Coupled with increased school drop out either due to economic hardships or pregnancy; most of these young girls find themselves in a climate of deprivation. This consigns them to low paying jobs, poor access to health facilities, exploitation, drug abuse and insecurity especially for those who find themselves in the streets.
In the past two decades Kenya has seen increased interventions in addressing gender disparities especially in the women rights front. However the gains made cannot be sustained without restructuring the social arrangements that perpetuate these inequalities from the community levels. Most indicators still show low economic empowerment status of women in most communities with most of the productive resources being owned by men. Poverty remains multidimensional encompassing low incomes and consumption, poor health and nutrition, low resource mobilization and other form of vulnerabilities. Poverty remains wide spread in Kenya afflicting dis-proportionally more women than men.
Gender disparities in productive resource ownership and economic opportunities greatly constrain poverty reduction endeavors hence limit development at the local level. As such, there is need to design and implement policy interventions that will see increased women efficiency and labor productivity at the grass root level. These interventions must take into consideration the special needs of the target beneficiaries. They need to be affordable since most of the target beneficiaries are economically challenged, they need to be appropriate taking into account the poor academic background of the recipients and finally they need to be sustainable, result oriented and time bound.
Free and just societies must be found up on the existence of free individuals. Poverty amongst young girls denies them access to health, information, legal redress and civil recognition. If further undermines their legitimate aspirations and human dignity. Addressing poverty amongst young women is key to securing the gains made is women advancement and leads to a more balanced development process that is conducive for viable democratic processes and establishment of just societies.
Background:
BACKGROUND – THIKA
Poverty does wear a predominantly female face. Thus, gender is key to poverty reduction. Gender is usually defined as the social meanings given to the biological sex differences. It’s an ideological and cultural construct. Gender is the basis for basic division of labour within societies e.g. division between productive and reproductive activities. Gender inequality often manifests itself in the form of differential access to resources and opportunities. The gap is widening with the decline of Kenya’s economic performance concurrently with poverty increase. The country has not been able to generate the growth necessary to reduce the social and economic inequalities.
This inequalities has affected women greatly since they experience higher levels of poverty and based on gender and marital status, they are more vulnerable to poverty than men. For instance, in Kenya women constitute 51.2% of the poor as compared to 48.8% of men. Women also head more poor households: 13.3% in rural areas and 25.5% in urban areas (Welfare Monitoring Survey 111 1997). This makes women one of the critical groups in any effort directed at reducing poverty. The government has put an effort by capturing Gender dimensions of poverty in PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper). However, in terms of integrating Gender dimensions into the final PRSP faded out in areas such as the macroeconomic framework, sector priorities, implementation matrix and the budget.
It is difficult if not impossible to reduce poverty without addressing the gender imbalances reflected in the different dimensions of poverty. Similarly, without women’s empowerment and advancement through promotion of gender equality, poverty cannot be reduced. A world Bank status report on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) indicated that reducing gender –based asset inequality increases growth, efficiency and welfare. In regard to this, Goldentop Rehabilitation Centre endeavors to capacitate young girls at risk with various skills e.g. hairdressing skills and entrepreneurial skill in a bid to improve their asset acquisition and also make them participants in the micro-economy. In doing this we hope that the poverty cycle will have been broken at grass root level. This would directly improve the quality of life of the whole family. In fact, research has revealed that men and children and therefore the society at large stand to benefit when women are brought more centrally into policy on economic development. For instance, female education leads to better nutrition, education for children and family welfare among others.
Goldentop Rehabilitation Centre is located in Thika district, which has a large proportion of doubtful population of 645,713 persons with an estimated annual growth rate of 2.8%. this population is projected to increase to 701,664 by 2002 and 828,531 in 2008 assuming that constant fertility rate and same growth rate prevail. However, with HIV/AIDS pandemic, which is currently at 34% of total population, the trend is expected to rise but at a decreasing rate. Majorities of those affected by the pandemic are youths. Youths at age group 0-24 were 432,653 at the beginning of the plan period (2002) and rose to 510,880 in at the end of the plan period. The youth age group represents 65% of the total population. Majorities of youths are jobless hence high levels of immorality and crime.
Despite the comparative advantages enjoyed by Thika District in terms in terms of its proximity to industries and a well served transport network, it was not performing well economically due to closure of most industries that offered employment to many residents of Thika. This was partly as result of increased emphasis on rapid liberalization without considering its negative impact on local industries, particularly the agricultural sector dominated by women. The emphasis was seen to favor large-scale private sector dominated at the expense of local small- informal sector. Also the sector retrenchment process in the past targeted lower cadre levels, which are largely dominated by women. There was no provision to ensure that women who occupy cadres are not retrenched and mss, as a way of ensuring gender balance. This inspite of the acknowledgement in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper that only 29% of those engaged in formal employment are women. This was in contrast to their observations that in order to break the cycle of poverty, women’s productive potential should be released enabling them share fully the benefits of development and in the products of their own labor.
Some of the negative effects of retrenchment particularly on the weak and vulnerable, majority of who are women and children include rising unemployment, poverty and difficulty of providing social safety nets. Women lacked credit to invest in income generating activities particularly those whose access to credit is conditional upon their husbands’ consent. Also, they tend not to own land and other forms of security to secure loans. It is now well acknowledged that in general women and children suffer disproportionately from elements of poverty, including intra-household poverty, compared to men. In addition, there has been increasing recognition of the fact that benefits at the macro level do not automatically “trickle down”, particularly in regard to poverty and inequality.
Increased levels poverty among women made them more vulnerable and prone to insecurities such as rape, which rendered many households poor. Lack of access to socially responsive, affordable legal and judicial services coupled to the care burden shouldered by women and girls led to high levels of HIV/AIDS making them forego economic engagements and dropout of schools. This broadened their poverty status further.
Unemployment led to isolated pockets of poverty in almost all parts of the district. Most pockets are found in urban slums mainly Thika Municipality, Ruiru Town and Juja. Other cases found amongst casual workers in large coffee plantations mainly in Kakuzi and Ruiru Divisions. Inspite of having very low wages and salaries, these workers normally have large families. Kiandutu slums Thika Municipality has a number of squatters, who are not assured of regular income. Given this trend, the demand for facilities such as schools, Hospitals, recreation facilities are already high. There is need therefore, to check the population growth by educating our young girls and women on reproductive health. This is a major goal of Goldentop Rehabilitation Centre. Available resources should be directed to social investment in order to cater for the rising population and the rapid increase of street children due to high rate of death caused by HIV/AIDS.
In order to alleviate poverty amongst women, establishing light industries, micro and small-scale enterprises should increase employment particularly for women who rely on minor sources of income. There should also be more open, participatory and responsive systems of governance to give the resource –poor, women and other excluded groups a political voice to influence allocation of public resources in their favour in order to reduce poverty. To empower women economically the UN member countries including Kenya committed in 1995 to the platform for action. The Beijing declaration also outlived 5 broad strategic areas for regulatory intervention to promote women’s economic empowerment amongst which included: providing business services, training and access to markets, information and technology particularly low-income women.
HISTORY – Goldentop Rehabilitation Centre.
VISION – Healthy, Self-reliant Young Women in a Just Society.
MISSION – Developing Healthy, Self-Reliant Young Women at risk through Appropriate, Practical and Sustainable practices.
Goldentop Rehabilitation Centre was started in 2004 with membership of 17 active members. It was registered officially with the ministry of social services on 2004, certificate Registration No. 8471.
We started with an intake of 12 girls 8 of whom were street girls while other four were girls from poor families. The street girls were given free training while the four were girls from poor families. The street girls were given free training while the four girls paid a subsidized fee of Ksh. 2000 for the whole course. So far we have had a total number of 27 graduates who have already been assimilated in the job market. Currently we have 17 girls who are undergoing training and will be graduating on December 2005. The number of girls has been increasing steadily but financial and material resources constraints are forcing us not to take a bigger number.
By giving support to poor families and street Children GoldenTop Rehabilitation Centre has enabled them sustain their lives by earning an income through the acquired skill.
Achievements
Since its inception in 2004, Goldentop rehabilitation centre has the following to her credit;
- Training and graduation of 44 girls from our centre.
- Reduction of street girls in our streets – Thika.
- Rescue of mistreated & oppressed young women.
- Compaing and creating awareness of HIV/AIDS.
-Facilitation of Voluntary Counseling and Testing of young women at risk.
-Facilitation of family planning and reproductive health services to young women at risk.
-Feeding of street babies and facilitation of their vaccination.
-Participated in Harambee youth week in the cleaning of Thika town.
-Care and development of needy but gifted girls.
Objectives:
2. OBJECTIVES
Goldentop seeks to help young women at risk and their community through;
(1)Increasing capabilities and opportunities for young women at risk.
(2)Improving the quality of life for young women at risk.
(3)Play a leading role in reducing gender biases in economic resource ownership.
(4)Reducing gender inequalities through information dissemination at grass root levels.
Milestones:
PROJECT FOCUS
The principal focus of the project will be to engender full participation of young girls in economic productivity inorder to realize improved levels of quality of life as well as attack poverty at grass root level.
PROJECT RATIONALE
The education system in Kenya up to Secondary level does not fashion its recipients with necessary skills and capabilities to immediately engage in productivity after completion. Faced with rising costs of higher education, most young girls find themselves out of school. This is occasioned by the fact that most households give preference to the boy child education neglecting the girl child.
Given this lack of professional education, most young women cannot access gainful employment and at best they find themselves limited to the care economy. As such there is need to design practical, affordable and sustainable interventions that would increase their economic opportunities. This is in line with poverty reduction, which will have a multiplier effect on the development of the community.
EXPECTED RESULTS
1)Increased economic opportunities for young women at risk.
2)Improved independence for young women at risk.
3)Reduced levels of poverty in the community.
4)Improved quality of life.
5)Improved gender equity.
6) Increased access to information.
SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability of this project will be vested on the ability to generate income by employing it’s physical and human resources. It will also draw from the services of interns in the specific area of expertise.
COLLABORATION
1)National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK)
2)Ministry of Culture gender & Sports – Groups registration
3)SACDEP Kenya
4)St. Mulumba Catholic Church
5)KIFA Insurance
6)Pathfinder International
7)Action for children in conflict
8)Family planning association of Kenya – Thika
Budget:
Annual Budget is amount to 1,300,000 million Kenya shillings.
Equivalent to 8900US dollars,and 13000 eUROS.
Note: One Euro is approximately 100 Kenya shillings,
Needs:
-Resources i.e financial,material,and human.
-Partnership
-Training of the project leaders and associates.
-Participation in worldwide campaigns,advocacy and lobbying for the young women at risk
-Other kind of assistance
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