IMARISHA MSICHANA

About Imarisha Program

The Imarisha Msichana project is an initiative implemented by FAWEK in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, which aims to significantly reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy in Kenya during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis. The program is being implemented in 20 counties in Kenya namely; Nakuru, Nairobi, Machakos, Elgeyo Marakwet, Kiambu, Garissa, Bungoma, Kakamega, Nyeri, Migori, Murang’a, Kajiado, Narok, Homa-Bay, Trans-Nzoia, Nyandarua, Busia, Meru, Siaya, and Turkana.

Actual interventions include collaboration with key stakeholders in the generation of credible and acceptable data on teenage pregnancies in Kenya that advises on apt solutions; championing for re-entry of girls to school, sensitization forums for girls, young women, boys, young men, parents, community leaders on human sexuality and prevention of pregnancy, media advocacy programs, and awards of FAWE/Mastercard Foundation gender equality ambassadors.

Imarisha Msichana  Swahili word for “Build Her Up/Firm Her Up” Slogan ‘Her Education, Her Future

Overall goal:

To significantly reduce the cases of Teenage pregnancies and child marriage by 2024: – Assessing the status and influence of COVID 19 on teenage pregnancy and collaborate with duty bearers in generating credible and acceptable data for more structures and intentional interventions and decision making to stem teenage pregnancy in Kenya.

Specific Objectives

1. To Strengthen Media Engagement for accurate and wide reach (sensitization of media, journalists, reporters, editors.)
2. Training/Sensitization Sessions for girls, young women, boys and young men, educators, duty bearers, religious leaders, and local community leaders on human sexuality and prevention of teenage pregnancy (Empowerment Sessions)
3. Boys and young men sensitization programs: Deliberately engage boys and young men in prevention programs and make them champions of girls ‘right

Our Activities 

SCHOOLS DIGITIZATION.

Background

Digital Technology is now an important integral aspect for the learning experience (Selwyn, 2016). Educational technology tools have become increasingly powerful and available for teachers and learners in the past three decades (Ross, 2020). It is the reform of the traditional information types (texts, sounds, visuals, videos, and other data from various sources) into the digital language (Wang & Guo, 2017). It serves as a crucial powerful tool in the process of knowledge propagation and distribution to educate and shape young minds in the current digital age. Educators, schools, and policymakers must create new opportunities through these technologies to improve the conventional teaching/learning experiences in traditional schools. This calls to alert the way in which the learning environment perceives education to improve the quality of education in schools, and prepare learners for the twenty-first-century requirements.

Several experiential studies in recent years investigated the positive impact of digital technologies on effective learning (Kryukov & Gorin, 2017; Niculescu, 2019). Educators from all grade-levels are coming to realize the benefits of technology as a vital element of learners’ education and a transformer to the ways learners learn and experience (Yehya, 2019). Consequently, educational systems must be significantly moved forward towards digitalization in education due to the emergence of advanced technologies and globalization. Despite the innovative potential and the usefulness of digital technologies in the educational setting, their implementations in meaningful learning do not occur spontaneously without complications.

Digitalization is facing various obstacles at different levels that hinder its adoption in schools. Many ministries of education concentrate their potentials on hardware and lack the importance of infrastructures to welcome technological development. They do not reflect a clear vision on digitalization and an effective response towards instructors’ professional development. Consequently, educators lack the vital meaning of digital literacy. They reflect low confidence and weak competencies to implement advanced digital tools and benefit from the communication channels of the social media platforms (Yehya et al., 2018). Their negative attitude towards digital tools and the effectiveness of their techniques lead to high resistance to accept digitalization and its impact on developing learners’ achievement in their learning environment.

Accordingly, policymakers and educators need to show the importance of digital learning beyond the hardware and the expanded definition of the learning management systems (Yehya et al., 2018). Educators must show awareness of radical changes to their curricula, instructions, assessments, and classroom management in the presence of educational digital technology tools. Consequently, specific digital strategies in schools and the development of a well-fit framework must be evolved in response to the significant convergence towards digitalization in education and schools.

The status of Kenyan schools is not far away from digitalization barriers. The efforts made by the policymakers in technology investments for Kenyan educational systems are not sufficient to achieve the desired digitalized schools. The majority of schools fail to be engaged in the digital age and to implement educational technology appropriately and effectively. Schools’ difficulties to implement ICT have continued to run during the process of adopting and using these technologies at the levels of learners, teachers, communities, and educational policymakers.

In the context of this situation, the question that arises is: “How will the Kenyan traditional schools be transformed to digital schools in order to benefit from the potential of digital technology?” Hence, FAWE is partnering with MasterCard Foundation in the Imarisha Msichana project which aims at improving digital skills across the 160 Imarisha schools across the 20 counties for schools to reflect on, to identify what hurdles influence the intentions of digitalizing to understand and improve their practices, and to achieve sustainable pedagogical improvements with the help of digital technologies. The program is being implemented in 20 counties in Kenya namely; Nakuru, Nairobi, Machakos, Elgeyo Marakwet, Kiambu, Garissa, Bungoma, Kakamega, Nyeri, Migori, Muranga, Kajiado, Narok, Homa-Bay, Trans-Nzoia, Nyandarua, Busia, Meru, Siaya, and Turkana.

ACTUAL INTERVENTIONS

FAWE targeted adolescent girls and boys to benefit from knowledge and skills that would enable them to fully transition to adulthood. This entailed investing in adolescent girls and young women in the select counties to grow and effectively participate in their society. The young girls and boys were  trained with the necessary digital skills, including ways to stay safe online.

FAWE  utilized both online and offline platforms to enhance their agency in reducing teen pregnancy and disseminate adolescent SRHR information to learners in participating schools through its Tuseme content.

BOYS AND YOUNG MEN CONFERENCE

Male engagement is pivotal to the success of the program interventions and that creating a pool of boys, young men, and opinion leaders with changed attitudes and behavior will have a ripple effect in getting more positive young men more involved in advocating against teenage pregnancy and child marriage.Through the Imarisha Msichana Programme a partnership between Fawe Kenya and Mastercard foundation held a boys and young men sensitization conference  in 10 counties in the country where the aim was to deliberately engaging boys, young men, opinion leaders and boda boda association in prevention programs and make them champions of girls ‘rights. The last day of the conference the launch of ‘I care about her’ campaign.

Through the training, boys and Young men were expected to shift from negatively being responsible for teenage pregnancies and instead tap into their potential to prevent pregnancies through abstinence from sex and/or practicing safe sex by encouraging the use of contraceptives hence have the pivotal role of boys in championing girls’ rights, speaking against any violations and inequalities against the girls and for young men to challenge retrogressive cultures and provide alternatives/good practices.

SENSITIZATION OF HEADTEACHERS, PRINCIPALS AND GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING TEACHERS ON SCHOOL RELATED GENDER BASED VIOLENCE AND ADOLSCENT SEXUAL REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH POLICY

Fawe kenya reached out to 480 teachers / heads across 20 counties. Each of the target counties had a representation of 24 participants. The training aimed at sensitizing head teachers and teachers on human sexuality, the national adolescent sexual and reproductive health policy 2015, SGBV and its SRHR implications and the implementation of circular 3 of 2010 and circular 14 of 2018 (protection of students/ learners from sexual abuse).

Headteachers Training Nakuru County

TUSEME CLUBS LAUNCH IN SCHOOLS

Meaning of Tuseme:

Swahli word with its meaning of Speaking out. It brings together an empowerment process for both girls and boys, to enable them to understand and overcome problems that hinder their academic and social development

Tuseme is an empowerment process designed to enable girls to understand the gender construct of the society they live in, to identify and analyze the emergent problems and how they hinder their academic and social development, to speak out about the problems, and to take action to solve them. The same process can and has been used to empower boys to understand their unequal gender positioning, and the need to support and accept gender equality as a human right. The TUSEME empowerment process uses the theatre for development approach, which adopts participatory methodologies and gives a voice to everybody.

Goal of the club is to put students at the center of empowerment process in schools. Therefore, it seeks to create, promote and sustain interactive platforms for both girls and boys to identify, understand and overcome challenges that affect their psychosocial and academic development

We have identified 160 schools in the counties chosen for the Imarisha Msichana programme where the Tuseme clubs have been established.

MEDIA TRAINING ON GENDER RESPONSIVE REPORTING ON SRHR

FAWE Kenya, under the Imarisha Msichana Programme, trained journalists, reporters, and young media professionals from our 20 counties of interest on Gender-Responsive Reporting on SRHR and Gender-Based Violence (GBV). This is because it is critical to ensure that the media addresses SRHR issues responsibly, encouraging dialogue, conversation, and discourse about the sensitive issue. This will help in creating a conversation that will address issues like teenage pregnancy that hinder girls from completing their educations, thereby mainstreaming gender and SRHR in the country. The training focused on capacity building and creating awareness campaigns against teen pregnancy and other harmful practices in a gender-responsive manner.
The Goal of the training was:
1.To enable participants to start thinking about gender issues while building capacity for the media in their efforts to depict the world in a more gender sensitive and gender responsive manner, thus contributing to more inclusive and equal societies