Giving girls an opportunity to make their own informed choices about their lives

Ahead of the day of the girl child international, we celebrate one of our beneficiary Rahel.

The main drivers of early/forced child marriage in our community is identified as teenager pregnancy, poverty, lack of education and sch drop out. At Smiles of hope Kenya we create awareness on the importance of education to the community and promotion of girls' education and livelihoods, we provide girls with social support to achieve their educational goals among other measures. It is our intention to identify best measures to delay child marriage. Rahel currently a student at Nuru Secondary school and a 2nd year narrowly escaped forced child marriage. Her mother who left home few years ago due to misunderstanding with the father, left Rahel no option but to grow the hard way. Being survived by her father who is a fisherman for over 10years, they are below the poverty line as the father got a chronic disease that his health has deteriorated and currently on drugs. Due to lack of knowledge on the importance of girl child Education, he has been tempted to marry her off. Her elder sister got married at a tender age due to Teen pregnancy. Rahel was only 14 years when I met her in school when we visited them for mentorship, and that is where I got her sad story, that her father intends to marry her off, and in fact negotiations are underway. I later visited the father and had a nice dialogue who responded so well and gave me the go ahead to support Rahel to the highest level of education. She is a hardworking girl, she scored 341 marks in the KCPE. She could even have scored better marks were it not be for the marriage negotiations going on while sitting for her exam. I’m seeing a future leader and a role model, someone who will raise her voice against child marriage by sharing her true life story. Smiles of hope is committed to promoting children's rights and empowering girls to become catalysts of change.