Insights from Kenya Data and Health Survey shows that one in five girls aged between 15 and 19 years in Kenya is either pregnant or has already given birth. This puts an important segment of our society at crossroads with the society stigmatizations at a high point. Our interactions with Young Mothers continue to narrow down to the very basics norms of the society. However, there remains a need to continue engaging them in order to understand how as an organization we can best partner with them and other organizations in order to create the balance we need. This includes engagements in Social, Economic and Political spheres and out of this, we came up with Empowering Young Mothers (EYOMO) as a platform for our engagements. With both short and long term goals, we seek to grow this initiative under our mission of having a community with stronger social and economic pillars.
Our first engagement started by collaborating with a familiar face, Kush Tracey. Through her initiative, Kush Tracey Initiative, we were able to interact with young mothers in the Metropolitan area of Kenya, covering Kajiado, Machakos, Kiambu and Nairobi counties as we distributed over 1500 boxes of diapers to needy young mothers.
“I partnered with Huggies Kenya in this noble initiative and we have been able to reach out to over 500 needy mothers from Jangwani ghetto of Mathare Slums, Quarry in Rongai, to young mothers serving jail sentences in Lang’ata and Machakos Women’s prison. At the same time we have visited those in maternity wards and the message is the same in all these areas, there is a need to empower young mothers through some of these creative spaces,” Kush Tracey says.
Maafleva Co-Founder and Chairman Emmanuel Ntoyai notes that the organization is looking to partner with like-minded individuals, institutions and organizations through need based approach in order to help young mothers uplift themselves both economically and socially.
