Christmas Appeal to Support Child Brides of the Maasai in Kenya
Girls as young as 12 are still being forced into marriage in some Maasai communities in and around Nairobi, Kenya.
Can you help protect vulnerable girls like *Namelok and give them the chance to stay in school?
At just 12 years old, Namelok was forced to marry a man 25 years older than her. By 13, she was a mother. Now 16, she is years behind in her education and struggling to care for her young child while trying to remain in school. Namelok’s community lives in extremely poor conditions near our Hope Centre in Nairobi. For girls here, early marriage is tragically common, and education is often the first thing they lose. But Namelok refuses to give up.
She dreams of finishing school, building a future, and giving her 3-year-old child the opportunities she never had.
*Name changed to protect privacy
Your support will keep her in school, while our team work to empower all of the girls and women in this community.
Here's what your donation can do
If you give £25
£25 will fund education support materials such as textbooks.
One of the main reasons these girls drop out of school is because they can’t afford the textbooks they are expected to buy. Your donation will enable us to supply these for one of the girls.
If you give £50
£50 will fund materials to help kickstart a livelihood programme
The women and girls have identified bead-making and liquid soap as two opportunities they would like to pursue. Being financially independent from the men is crucial to their empowerment.
If you give £100
£100 will help fund our literacy and maths classes for the women in the community
Being able to read, write and do basic maths is crucial for the girls/ women to become independent and less reliant on the men. Your donation will help fund our team’s literacy and maths programme.
Crammed in a metal shack with four siblings and her mum, life is extremely hard for Namelok. She has no baby supplies, no money for textbooks or a school uniform to keep her education on track, all while carrying the immense trauma of what she’s endured.
Living in abject poverty and squalor, life is especially hard for girls. Many are child brides like Namelok, becoming mothers in their early teens. Seen as property within the tribal hierarchy, it’s common for girls to be married at 13 and have a child soon after. When we visited in September, there were nine pregnant children, some as young as 13. It felt almost surreal to see such young girls holding toddlers in their arms.
92% of Maasai women have no formal education and no viable workplace skills, so they are entirely dependent on their spouses, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and abandonment. If girls and women like Namelok are literate and have a livelihood, they will have a voice and will be better placed to stand up for their rights. Our team is working with them to create livelihoods. The women have identified liquid soap, petroleum jelly, and bead craft as three product sets they can sell. They need some modest seed funding to get going.
Namelok is years behind in her education, so our team provides extra support and coaching to help her work through anything she finds challenging and to encourage her overall progress.
We also visit the community regularly to hold literacy and maths classes for both girls and women, which Namelok finds especially helpful. We have rarely seen such a hunger and desire to learn — the women are determined to better themselves!
If you or your church give £1,000
A donation of £1,000 from you or your church will fund the project’s therapy and social support work for a year.
Many of the girls we serve have suffered trauma. Your donation will enable us to provide trauma care for the most vulnerable, as well as social support.
We have been encouraged by the menfolk's response to our project, with most of them generally supportive of their wives being empowered this way. Five turned up at our inaugural ‘women’s rights’ training session for the whole community. But we still have a long way to go.
Your support can help us transform this community and Namelok’s life. No other charity or organisation is currently working with these women and our team’s vision is to reach out to other Maasai communities which have also settled in neighbouring counties.
Thank you for any support you can give – please be assured it will have a huge impact.
Namelok’s friend, Joy*
Joy* was married at 14 and pregnant at 15.
Now aged 17, she has made it to year 10 at school and, like Namelok, is determined to finish her education. “Being a teenage mum at school is very demanding and draining, especially as there is so much pressure to earn some money as my family is so poor.”
*Names changed to protect privacy
Thank you for your kindness and compassion.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute… defend the rights of the poor and needy." Proverbs 31:8
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