Funzo, an Education for Teenage Mothers project by Carolina for Kibera (CFK), champions the importance of education for adolescent girls during pregnancy and re-enrolment into school after delivery. Unintended and early pregnancies outside of marriage are frowned upon and associated with promiscuous behaviour which leads to discrimination and stigma against teenage mothers. Furthermore, the girl is denied a right to education as she is preserved as being unfit to continue her education. With most adolescent girls being unaware of their rights they conform to society’s expectations and settle. Most girls are from poor households, so the circumstances of their children do not improve exposing them to vulnerabilities leading to a never-ending cycle.

For the adolescent girls, the project creates awareness amongst them of the existence of policies by the government that ensures their re-enrolment to school, create a platform for them to engage relevant government agencies to demand action for change to issues they face, provide linkages and references to scholarships to cater for their education, offer psychosocial support to gain encouragement from each other as they re-enrol back to school and tackle the challenge of being new mothers.

The Carolina for Kibera (CFK) project; Funzo, an Education for Teenage Mothers is an influencing grant that ran from August 2017 to January 2020. During this period, the  project  presented  an  opportunity  to  reignite  in  the students and  their parents/guardians   the   importance   of   education   while   empowering   their caregivers  with  skills  to  encourage  and  support  their  children enrol to  school. The  schools  also  have  now  turned  from  expelling  girls  to  being  motivators  of teenage mothers. Carolina For Kibera has 30 schools as alias that train teachers and  enforces  the  return  to  school  policy  as  they  retain  and  enrol  new  teenage mothers in schools and support them emotionally. The enrolment of the teenage mothers went far beyond just going to school, but successfully  completing  with  some  of  the  girls  reached  during  the  first  year  of the project implementation, have already gained employment especially those in vocational  trainings.   

Funzo  supported  410  with  scholarships  to  return  and remain  in school  and  of  these  321  have  completed  their  education  with  11 currently employed. School administration partnership has promoted acceptance for re-enrolment of teenage  mothers  in  Kibera  schools  and  reduced  stigma  among  the  girls.  As  a result,  no  teenage  girls  dropped  out  of  school  during  the  project  life  cycle without  CFKs  know  how  and  response.  30 Memorandum of  understanding (MoUs) between the school and CFK have been signed. Advocacy traction was gained more so during international days such as, “The 16 days of activism”, “Day of the Girl”, “Day of the African child” and “Menstrual hygiene day” as they presented an opportunity for teenage mothers, parents and teachers who support education for teenage mothers as well as the end of stigma to speak out and sensitise the community, nation and world. One innovative idea that gave CFK the avenue to better understand the needs of girls as well as give them a platform to voice their views locally and internationally is the Girls Parliament. This model was designed to be run by girls and use their voice. This was the first successful implementation of the model with teenage mothers at the forefront.  

Through the programme life cycle we have been able to lobby support from Members of County Assembly,  Nairobi  County,  Ministries  and  other  parastatals  such  as  Ministry  of Health,  Gender,  Education,  the  Prosecutor’s Office,  Members  of  Parliament, Women’s representative among others. These engagements were accomplished through  meetings,  TV  interviews;  Radio  shows  (local  and  international  such  as Nation TV and BBC) as well as closed door meetings. This platform was not only a  great  opportunity  to  advocate  for  the  rights  teenage  mothers  but  girls  as  a whole who are survivors of sexual violence that often leads to pregnancy. 

Here is another story captured.

Moving forward; CFK is looking to upscale the project to Nakuru and other areas where there are no organisations working on teenage pregnancies.