What better way to invest in adolescent girls and young women to grow and effectively participate in their society than by giving them a voice?
This is what the Imarisha Msichana program, a partnership of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) and the Mastercard Foundation, is doing through Tuseme Clubs.
The Tuseme Clubs are formed in schools to empower girls to speak out. They provide a safe space for young girls to learn and express their views about the gender-based challenges that they face, which can be a major barrier to their participation and excelling in their education. The main participants of the Tuseme clubs are diverse groups of girls, including teen mothers aged between 9 to 18 years and young women aged 19 to 25 years who benefit from knowledge and skills that would enable them to fully transition to adulthood. The school-based clubs are run by club patrons who are assigned teachers from the schools, and the students form the membership.
The program has established 160 clubs in selected schools across 20 counties. The girls are also introduced to FAWE’s Tuseme Youth Empowerment Program, which brings in girls and boys and provides a platform to create gender awareness on several topics, thus enhancing self-esteem, leadership, and social and life skills while promoting a positive attitude amongst boys towards girls’ education.
The program has designed an age-appropriate and context-relevant Tuseme Manual that provides guidance on establishing and running Tuseme Clubs in participating schools.
Impact so far
Most patrons have also been using the Tuseme club platforms to take the students through some key life skills sessions on communication, self-esteem, self-efficacy and sexual reproductive health and rights. This has greatly improved students social skills beyond the class and gives the girls and boys the confidence required to prevent and stop teenage pregnancy, child marriage and all other retrogressive cultural practices affecting their education.
64% of schools under the Imarisha Msichana program, are using other interactive strategies, such as theatre, poems etc. to deliver awareness messages in a more exciting way. The mentioned strategies have been used during parents meeting platforms to sensitize the parents/guardians and students on challenges affecting girls in accessing, remaining in school and transitioning to other higher levels of education and actions needed by all the relevant stakeholders to support the girls.