Kyobe Foundation’s community-based girls only clubs provide safe spaces for girls to gather, learn and engage in various activities. The clubs focus on empowering girls, building their self-esteem, and providing education on important topics such as self-defence, mental health, menstrual hygiene management, leadership skills. We have “HER VOICE” in 10 communities and these have created safe spaces for young girls to share and learn from each other. They are now ready to complete their education because they know that it’s the only way, they can achieve all the dreams. When we started working with young girls, we realized that many of them were very scared to speak about issues affecting them in their lives. We later decided to introduce "HER VOICE CLUBS". These brought the girls together and they were given a chance to openly speak about their issues or seek one on one counseling sessions. A few months later, the girls have now improved in their communication skills and many have received guidance.
We have these clubs in 10 communities and we wish to extend to more communities and schools. KYOBE FOUNDATION’S ‘HER VOICE CLUBS’ BUILD SELF-ESTEEM AND CONFIDENCE FOR GIRLS When girls are given a platform where they can easily share their ideas, challenges and testimonies, they benefit more by building each other’s confidence. When we introduced these clubs in communities, we realized that girls had been missing a lot and suffering a lot in silence. Challenges to do with menstruation were never talked about because many times it considered a shame, child marriage, harassment. Girls were missing school due to feel of being humiliated by boys while others would hide for long hours behind the classroom for fear of being seen tying themselves with sweaters to cover the stained part. Now it’s easy for girls to support each other in times of crisis and they now understand that menstruation is a normal process of girl child growth that needs to be treated as part of human life. The girls are more confident than ever before and the boys have also been sensitized about the need to support girls.