Thanks to CARE’s Girl Child Program, funded by CIDA, Kenyan girls like Margaret are given an opportunity for a brighter future.

When 13-year-old Margaret saw someone walking towards her on the violent streets of Nairobi last year, she anxiously prepared for the worst.

Her mother had died just months before; her father disappeared when she was barely 10. For months, she had been begging desperately to buy enough food for herself and her two younger siblings, fleeing to her grandmother’s house at night to escape the rapes and beatings that regularly befall girls who sleep on the streets. She was alone; no one had ever helped her. So she was shocked when the person took her hand, gave her food and shelter, and enrolled her in school. “All of a sudden I had my life back, and I felt loved and valued again,” she said, beaming.

The government social worker who rescued Margaret is part of a massive, cross-country network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community groups, and government ministries with the single goal of saving vulnerable girls like Margaret.

CARE Canada’s Girl Child Program, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), began in 1997 by providing management and counselling training and capacity building to small NGOs that try to help orphaned and vulnerable girls. But it was soon apparent that there was little or no coordination between the hundreds of NGOs working in this sector in Kenya.

“It was like having 300 people standing holding nets ready to catch girls from falling, but they were standing too far apart. Girls would fall through the cracks,” said Samuel Adol, project manager for the Girl Child Program. “What we’ve done is bring these people together, so their nets are all joined into one giant safety net to protect all girls so they don’t fall.”

As part of the program, CARE Canada helped establish the Girl Child Network, an association of more than 280 local NGOs and community groups, all with the common goal of helping vulnerable girls.

In Kenya, life is difficult and often dangerous for girls. Instead of being allowed to go to school like their brothers, girls are often forced to stay at home to care for their younger siblings, walk long distances to fetch water, and help manage the household. Rape and physical abuse are common; traditional practices such as female genital mutilation and early forced marriage trap girls as young as 10 years old into lives of subservience and without rights.

The Girl Child Program works to change this, and has already had a dramatic impact. In 2001, the network was instrumental in the enactment of the Government of Kenya’s Children Act, a bill designed to protect the rights of children, particularly girls. The next year, 16 members of the Girl Child Network accompanied 12 Kenyan children to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in New York, ensuring Kenyan voices are heard in the worldwide fight for children’s rights.

Now in its second phase, which started in 2003, the Girl Child Program is working to incorporate all of those hard-won gains into a comprehensive, nationwide policy that will make protection of girls and young women a priority for Kenya. Working closely with the government, CARE Canada has set up a countrywide database that can track girls who have sought help or who have been picked up by the network.

“If a girl comes to a shelter because she was being beaten but then disappears again, the database allows us to follow up. Counsellors or government children’s officers can go to the girl’s family and speak to them about children’s rights and the girl’s right to go to school, for example,” said Mr. Adol. “Once we have a record of them, these girls will not simply be forgotten or get lost in the system if they leave a shelter.”

The database is operating across the country, and the project, which runs until 2006, is close to its goal of training all of Kenya’s 62 district government children’s officers. The officers take a five-day course on how to use and maintain the database.

Through the work of the Girl Child Network, as well as CIDA and the Government of Kenya, the outlook for girls in the country has become much brighter. The introduction of free, government-funded primary school also means girls have a better chance of getting an education, and the government is committed to increasing the number of girls enrolled.
For children like Margaret, that means a future for herself and her siblings. “My goal is to go to secondary school and get good grades, so I can get a good job and take care of my brother and sister,” she said.