Sauti Ya Wanawake and Action Aid’s empowerment program for teen mothers has enrolled around 1,141 teenage mothers from Kilifi County.
Teen mothers are trained in technical skills as part of the empowerment initiative to help them better their life.
The girls are among the 13,000 Kilifi residents who made headlines in 2019 after becoming pregnant as teenagers, prompting action by the county, national government, and non-governmental organizations.
As part of the empowerment initiative, Sauti ya Wanawake and Action Aid Kenya developed a program for out-of-school girls to empower them with polytechnic skills to enable them to be self-sufficient.
“Some of them are these ones who joined technical institutions through action Aid and Sauti ya Wanawake and now they have qualified with different expertise,” she said.
She said Statistics in the last few years indicated that there were over 13,000 teenage pregnancies in Kilifi County but many could be wondering where the teenage pregnancy victims are since then.
“As you know Kilifi has many challenges, especially for the girl child including teenage pregnancies which are still being experienced in different areas of the county,” she said.
Velma Kagonya from Sauti ya Wanawake said they issued 164 sewing machines to girls who did tailoring while 56 girls who trained in hairdressing got equipment to open their own saloons.
“It has been a long journey with these girls, which began five years ago, they were enrolled into polytechnics through our support and gained knowledge,” she said.
The Girls called on the county government to set up an empowerment centre where they can do their tailoring work so that they can be given to them to do the work in case of any orders from schools.
