The Public Health team is excited to begin work on a new component of our school Mobile Clinics, distribution of sanitary pads for menstruation and reproductive health education. It is common for young girls to miss school during menstruation due to lack of sanitary supplies and to not have a full understanding of what is happening to their bodies during this period of transition. In a preliminary needs assessment, most girls reported learning about menstruation from parents, teachers or sisters and felt fear, shyness or embarrassment about menstruation. Our Community Health Nurse and Community Health Workers are providing reproductive health education to parents and students and re-usable, locally made sanitary pads for girls. Not only will this prevent girls from missing school , but it will promote open communication and education about reproductive health throughout the life course.

Re-usable, locally made sanitary pads

After receiving over 4,500 soaps from PZ Cussons in January, Village Hopecore International began to distribute them at our mobile clinic partner schools. In order to ensure that students wash their hands with soaps, we teach the importance of hand washing through a dance, which was made by UNICEF (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=825gGELjB98).

Some schools made their own hand washing stations, so they have a sense of ownership with this hand washing project. We hope that our mobile school partner schools continue taking an initiative to make their schools healthier!

As the next step, we are planning to provide water treatment materials and water tanks to our mobile clinic schools. Currently, many students are drinking tap water, which is one of the main causes of stomachache among them. By washing hands and drinking clean water, students can be healthy and focus on their academics! We are looking forward to reporting this water project in the near future.

In 2011, almost 50% of members who either completed their first or second loan cycle, had invested most of their 30,000 KSH loan in dairy farming. A good portion of loan clients used this money to buy a new cow in hopes of reaping the benefits of dairy farming. Understanding the profitability of dairy farming and with a desire to increase their profits, others have used funds to lower business costs by constructing better housing to prevent diseases, and purchasing chaff cutters to decrease the time spent preparing cow fodder. Some have even used funds to purchase another cow.

Investing in a cow to produce milk, is a profitable business venture in Kenya for various reasons. Milk is the popular drink of choice in many Kenyan households. Every morning, many Kenyans start their day with a cup of chai, which is milk, tea and a liberal amount of sugar. Many Kenyans drink another cup of chai during lunch and also another during supper.

For many of our loan clients, milk has been an important contributing factor in improving their livelihoods. The demand for milk allows many of our loan clients to make consistent profit. This has led them to better pay for school fees for their children, improve their housing and also invest in their existing businesses. Additionally, milk helps improve the nutrition of their family by providing important nutrients, especially to children.

Women have always been the cornerstone of the work at Village Hopecore International and many microfinance initiatives throughout the world. We focus on women because they are more likely to spend the money they earn through microbusiness on their families, most notably their girl children. Girl children in Kenya have traditionally been excluded from education, were the last to receive nutrition when food supplies were limited, and faced general challenges of discrimination and lack of opportunities. In the last several decades, the resources and opportunities for girls has significantly increased, thanks to the rising voices of women advocating for themselves and their families.

At Village Hopecore, we aim to inspire the future of girls by increasing access to health resources at mobile clinic and training young women to advocate for reproductive health as youth peer educators. Eighty percent of our microloan recipients are women and our explicit goal in funding women is to increase gender equality in households and the community, which will ultimately benefit young girls and their futures. The future of girls depends on the empowerment of women and at Village Hopecore we are inspired by the women we work with everyday. We are committed to a future where all girls have every opportunity to change their worlds.