I mentioned before that one of my goals here is to create a set of

Rose, a teacher with fifteen years of experience, has always wanted to help needy girls

Some are calling it “Independence day for women.” MP Sophia Abdi Noor said, “Men got

In this post I want to explain how activist Helen Rotich has addressed the male

Helen made some very interesting decisions in how to incorporate the traditional female circumcisers in

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23rZTnZixqA Over the next couple of days, I want to highlight the work of Kenyan

In Kenya, there is a brewing but less noticed hunger crisis (and not only in the drought-affected northern areas). This CNN World article explains that prices in Kenya have risen faster than the global levels, and that Kenya’s problems have “been exacerbated by other factors, such as high fuel costs to transport food, the weak Kenyan shilling and maize export bans by neighboring countries” such as Tanzania, which recently imposed its own maize export ban to preserve domestic food security. In addition, because of the drought in the north, there is simply less food, and much of what little remains is being bought up to improve food security in the north.

The organization is stepping in to take advantage of the opportunity to give an extra enrichment program during “tuition period.” This leaves me in charge (ha!), and a lot of room for innovation!

See anything ruining the view from the idyllic riverside property of the EnKakenya Centre for

One year in prison and a six hundred dollar fine for cutting off your daughter’s genitals by force and forcibly marrying her as a 13 year old. Is that punishment enough to deter? Not at all. The damage done to a girl through circumcision and forced marriage can be a lifetime challenge, a lifetime sentence, compared to the meager punishment for those who contravene the law.

Miriam comes across more like any lively, athletic American sixteen year old than any other

Last week I visited St. Josephs girls’ primary boarding school, which also doubles as the

This week Cleia and I were fortunate enough to accidentally meet the subject of this

There are several common reasons people present for why FGM is “bad”: girls tend to

Giving birth in Africa is already a dark experience for most of the continent. In

The more people I talk to, the more complex is the tale about how the

In April, at the end of term 1 (the school system here runs on a

Over the past week I have been absent from the blog and from Enoosaen because

Thanks to some high(er) speed internet in Nairobi, I was finally able to post some

Had some great internet in Nairobi, so I was able to upload this footage to

For weeks all the staff have been inundated with questions. “Teacher, what day will we

A couple of weekends ago, I made a trip that involved 3 matatus, 4-5 hours

I wanted to share with you a photo of our students in our new computer

On Wednesday I met another captivating figure in the anti-FGM scene. Paul Ole Sire might at first glance seem to be a patriarch steeped in tradition; he is a man with 4 wives and 24 children, after all. Yet he is perhaps one of Enoosaen’s most interesting agents of change for the oppressive cultural traditions towards female children.

Today an unusual sight rolled into Enoosaen as truckload of computers donated by HP arrived at the doorstep of the town’s two girls’ schools. The Enoosaen Boys’ Secondary School has had a computer lab for years, reinforcing the inequality in the local educational system that girls face.

Hello all: After my friend Helaina Stein’s Rwandan mobile miracle, I was reminded that I

“They asked me to undergo FGM in December 2009 but I refused. When the results came out I requested my father to take me to form one. He kept quiet and left. He never wanted to talk to me or hear anything about me because I refused to undergo F.G.M.”

Don’t hit a cow while driving in Maasailand.

I almost involuntarily followed the sounds of beats and exultant chants coming from the stairwell. There I found a legion of girls like Maasai Kakenya, above, banging out rhythms with sticks and hands and the jerrycans with which they fetch water from the river.

A girls’ boarding school might sound very old-school British, but it is a game changer for girls’ education in a rural area like Enoosaen and the surrounding isolated areas.

“Charlotte, she won’t speak,” Kakenya Centre for Excellence student Vivian told me. She was talking about her holiday Health and Leaderhip Workshop/Camp mentor partner, Beatrice, from one of the surrounding schools from an even more rural area.

I wanted to empower the permanent members of this project rather than interrupt the systems that may already work for them. The funny thing is I’ve spent a month now learning, watching, and listening, and I no longer hold the naïve belief that not stepping on toes is always compatible with moving a project in the right direction.

Last week Dr. Thomas (T.H.) Culhane, founder of SOLAR CITIES, and his team paid us

On my way to observe her class, I found Margaret dashing into the teachers’ office holding a bunch of flowers announcing, “These are my teaching tools!” Here are some photos to showcase the inspired teaching here in the Enkakenya Centre for Excellence.

I arrived here more than a month ago and I think I have finally gotten my bearings. So, what is my life like here?

Role models like Kakenya and model schools like the KCE change the idea of education and motivate a community to raise educated girls. Parents, Kakenya says, “see that it is possible and everybody wants the same thing for their daughters.” I am so eager to see what this looks like in practice.