An older woman puts her arms around two younger girls, all three are smiling, showing the kind of generational change Mekuno Project hopes to create.
Girls in their school uniforms smiling at the camera as they are at an assembly. Girls with higher levels of education are less likely to undergo FGM or be married off as children.
Savings4Transformation groups loan out money to members to promote financial literacy and allow members to pay for school fees or emergencies.
An older woman puts her arms around two younger girls, all three are smiling, showing the kind of generational change Mekuno Project hopes to create.
Our Story
We support holistic solutions to eliminate the root causes of FGM and child marriage. Our work focuses on quality education, child protection and voice, community transformation, and economic empowerment.
In Kenya, one in 5 girls undergoes FGM or child marriage, and in some ethnic groups, those numbers are as high as 9 in 10 girls. The two practices sometimes go hand in hand, but even when they don't, the reasons behind them are similar and rooted in extreme poverty. Families receive a higher bride price for a cut girl, and in some places, marrying a girl off early is the norm, and can be the difference between survival and starvation for desperate families.
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Every girl deserves the chance to live a hope-filled future of her own design. Lilian is a perfect example of why our work is so crucial:
But we cannot do this by simply getting rid of the practices. When the problem is deep-rooted, solutions must be comprehensive to result in sustainable change.
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In the areas where our partner organizations have implemented this holistic approach, we have seen rates of FGM and child marriage go from 95% to less than 10% in ten years. Systemic change is possible within a generation.
Your Impact
Your donations allow us to provide girls with school fees, pay for skills-training and entrepreneurship classes, educate community members on the dangers of FGM, and much more.