Schoolgirls pen heartbreaking letters in ‘Dear Mama President’ campaign

When the Daily Nation published a report to the effect that 28 primary school girls from Trans Nzoia and Bungoma counties had been impregnated-five from one institution, Ms Leah Ogada was struck hard by the news and immediately sprung to action. Her mission? To unearth the reasons behind this.

Ms Ogada,35, a senior advisor with Ipas Africa Alliance, which works to advance women’s reproductive health and rights across the continent, had been involved in school outreach activities in the affected regions before, but the report about the minors still triggered her curiosity.

“Although I had been involved in school outreach activities in the region, the report about the state of the minors triggered our curiosity. We wanted to know what was actually going in the minds and lives of these minors,’’ she says.

“We were concerned that the high dropout rate of minors from school due to pregnancies and felt something needed to be done to reverse the trend,” she says.

PLATFORM TO SPEAK OUT
Ipas Africa Alliance, which was funded by the Netherlands government with an aim to reduce maternal deaths from unsafe abortions and to advocate for policies, reached out to ministry of education officials in seven counties from Western Kenya and jointly launched a campaign to give pupils in selected schools, a platform to speak out about their challenges, fears and what they felt were personal obstacles to their education.

Fifty schools from Bungoma, Busia, Vihiga, Kakamega, Siaya, Trans Nzoia and Uasin Gishu counties were picked for the campaign, dubbed “Dear Mama President” and which ran for a year from last October.

It involved pupils between 10-15 years.
“We gave the pupils pen and paper and asked them to list down what they were experiencing and made them not concentrate on their studies,’’ Ms Ogada says.

The campaign coincided with First Lady’s Margaret Kenyatta’s Beyond Zero campaign, whose focus is mainly on maternal health.

The pupils were asked to address their letters to her, and the mention of Mrs Kenyatta’s name gave them the confidence to pour their hearts out, because it gave them hope that their troubles would be addressed.

“What we read shocked us. We were traumatised and shocked by the results as we had not expected what came out from the pupil’s own stories,’’ Ms Ogada explains.

MEDICAL ATTENTION
“We had to for instance move in quickly and seek medical attention for some girls who we found were suffering from effects of abortion,’’ she adds.

She says that in 80 per cent of the 3,307 letters, the minors spoke of sexual abuse including rape, defilement, incest, and sodomy by their relatives, teachers, schoolmates and even parents.

Other issues related to lack of parental care, peer pressure drug abuse and poverty (including jigger infestation).

“We realised that we needed to bring in parents and authorities to deal with some of grave cases even as some of the minors had to be taken to hospital. They had been raped and even sodomised and were suffering quietly,’’ she adds.

When the campaign kicked off, three of the teachers who were suspected perpetrators of sexual abuse in Busia and Trans Nzoia went into hiding, fearing arrest.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko also moved in, says Ms Ogada, and his officials helped prosecute some culprits who were mentioned and charged in court.

Ms Ogada says the campaign’s intention was to have briefs of the essays sent to the Education ministry for possible development of policy and budget that specifically address adolescent reproductive health and rights.

They also hoped and still do, that counties would use that to increase their budgets for health so that they are able to address and prioritise issues to do with adolescence health and reproductive rights.

At least two counties, Busia and Vihiga, were able to adjust their health budgets following the campaign, she says.

In their letters, the pupils opened up their hearts giving graphic details of traumatising experience in the hands of rapists-mainly older people known to them and even strangers.

Some girls told of how after they were molested by close relatives, their mothers would warn them against speaking out. The contents of some of the letters are heartbreaking as the children narrate their pain to “Mama President’.’

But Ms Ogada is disappointed that the campaign ended “prematurely” last month at a time follow-up on the affected minors is needed. However, she has a reason to smile.

The Dear Mama Campaign has been recognised as among Kenya’s four success stories, singled out to be highlighted to the world at the International Conference on Family Planning, which opens in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, next week.

She is expected to make a presentation at the conference which will also be addressed by global leaders among them Indonesian President Joko Widodo, UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin and Bill & Melinda Gates co-chair Melinda Gates.

This year’s conference whose theme is “Global commitments, Local Actions,’’ is expected to address access to life-saving family planning resources and elevate family planning in the context for new Sustainable Development Goals.

An analysis of the latest national and county health budget indicates that allocations to health by counties increased to 22 per cent in 2014/2015, from 13 percent in the 2013/2014 financial year.

But the analysis by the Health Policy Project Kenya, which is funded by USAid, found huge differences between counties. In 2013/14 financial year, their analysis showed that more than 80 per cent allocated at least 15 per cent of their budgets to health.

In the last financial year, 2014/2015, says the percentage of counties that met the 15 percent threshold fell to less than 50 percent.

“While the average allocation to health to counties rose, county decision makers continued to provide to provide the majority of funding to visible infrastructure projects rather than health services,’’ says the 2014/2015 national an county healthy analysis

report. It calls upon county governments to increase health budgets.

OTHER SUCCESS STORIES
Other success stories set to be highlighted at the Indonesia conference:
1. On discovering that fellow young people would more likely take interest in contraception and family planning lessons when in a comfortable and conducive environment, Evans Odenyo, a peer educator and a football coach, decided to integrate sports with lessons on health and family planning. For instance, he gets his participants to dribble, a football away from a cone labelled “sex without a condom.’’

His unique strategy for creating a safe space for youth to discuss family planning will be highlighted at this year’s conference.

2. A World Vision supported project which saw 120 fathers and 28 religious leaders trained to disseminate family planning messages on “healthy timing and spacing pregnancies,’’ to their families and communities.

The act by influential men to publicly display such messages created an enabling environment for men and women to access family planning in community meetings. The messages read: “I am an HTPS/FP (Healthy Timing and Spacing of Pregnancies/Family Planning) male champion.’’

3. Tupange project where 880 community health workers in Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa, Machakos and Kakamega were trained for five days on Family Planning methods to deal with issues of overcrowding and under-staffing at health centres.

They were expected to provide Family Planning counselling and distribute pills and condoms. Between 2011 and 2013, the volunteers distributed the same to more than 805, 904 clients resulting to doubling of family planning services at the health facilities they supported.