Country ... Kenya
Helping Girls

Asking for Help ... The ZanaAfrica Initiative in Kenya ... A Mentoring Program for Girls

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Asking for Help ... The ZanaAfrica Initiative in Kenya ... A Mentoring Program for Girls

From Facebook A Facebook Group Category:Organizations - Non-Profit Organizations Description:

ZanaAfrica (ZanaA) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization which began its formation in October 2007. Founded by Megan White, a social entrepreneur who has been empowering marginalized groups in Kenya for the past decade, ZanaA’s focus is on identifying and developing simple enterprise solutions to solve complex social problems plaguing countries throughout Africa.

ZanaA will be keeping adolescent Kenyan girls in school by developing environmentally friendly, locally-made sanitary pads and coordinating their free distribution. ZanaA also conducts empowerment groups for girls and boys to help them make informed decisions regarding their sexuality/life choices, and trains women in business and sales opportunities.

ZanaA’s vision is to see individuals, communities, and grass-roots organizations in Africa improving their world through self-led, sustainable, and replicable initiatives. Our mission is to provide individuals and organizations with the necessary tools to be the agents of their own societal change. Our organization believes in working as a team with individuals living in the communities to identify the challenges they face and develop appropriate solutions.

From the Organization

The following is a New Year's message to friends of Megan … I have offered to help distribute the message to others who might be interested in helping. As you know the Tr-Ac-Net and Community Analytics (CA) initiatives address issues around socio-economic performance. The ZanaA initiative seems to be very worthy of support! The following is from New Years Day!

A Message from Megan White, Founder of the ZanaA Initiative :

2010 resolutions: Me asking for help
Kenya, January 1st, 2010 at 8:59pm

Hi friends,

You all have supported me in so many ways over the years, and as I enter 2010 I am truly grateful for your friendship, prayers, and encouragement.

I'd wanted to write Christmas cards, then new years cards, and then just a slightly-tailored individual Facebook inbox message to each of you, but I realized that 1) I have no money to mail cards; and 2) it would take me over 8.5 hours to turn out one email per minute to my friends, and that was a bit discouraging.

But I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished through our organization that I want to share with everyone how we are pioneering a self-sustaining program to keep poor girls in Kenya in school with sanitary pads, Empowerment Clubs, and a career ladder throughout 2009.

Please take a moment to journey with me through this note. I recognize that many of you know all about what I'm doing, but that not everyone does. And then continue walking with me as I share about how I need your help.

Do you remember yourself at 12 or 13? How your body was changing, not to mention the social world around you? Imagine if these physical changes led to increased costs that would not allow you to stay in school? Imagine if your family felt that educating you, a girl, was not of value when family resources were limited, particularly when sanitary pads were so expensive? Imagine if your family chose to marry you off or make you find work?

What would you do?

Some of you might try to continue in school. How? By trading favors with men, young and old, to buy the items you needed for the month. This is what is happening to girls I know by name.

In fact, each year, 3.5 million learning days are lost in Kenya as girls struggle with the reality of their monthly cycle and its impact on learning.

Imagine there was somewhere that was safe to go to, where you could speak about your hopes and fears about the present, learn valuable life skills, get physical and psychological support, and have someone to look up to, someone who has come through this time in life.

Where is this place?

For the girls of Kibera, the most densely populated slum in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is the Empowerment Clubs (ECs) of the organization I started, ZanaAfrica (ZanaA). These Empowerment Clubs - now running for exactly one year! - are part of the ZanaA’s strategy to eradicate poverty amidst women and children at the bottom-of-the-pyramid. In 2009, ECs directly reached 1,000 students (87% girls) in one-hour after-school ECs and this month we plan to double our impact and reach 2,000 students per week.

But ZanaA is not stopping there!

The Junior Field Officers (JFOs) who run the ECs are themselves from Kibera, and graduates of High School. We currently have 8 JFOs – most of whom I’ve known since they were 8 years old through my work with them in HCI-Kenya. They each mentor 125 youth in the ECs, while being role models who are forever breaking their families out of poverty.

Thanks to one woman who took it upon herself to raise funds for University for our JFOs, all of them will start college in 2010, while still mentoring new JFOs and maintaining a presence in Kibera with their current student mentees. This is incredible because less than 5% of Kenyans ever make it to college.

Thanks to another woman, they will each be getting a loan to start businesses – from a French fries café to hot showers in the slums, from mobile phone pre-paid credit to jewelry making – and help off-set the costs of their education. Girls in the ECs now can say, “If Rosa (or Faith, Maureen or others) can do it, then so can I!”

Next week, we are hiring 5 new JFOs, three from the schools we’re in. This ups the bar for all schools, with all students working harder because they know they have a chance at something miraculous: a job right after High School, and a chance to attain their dreams.

Sustainable solutions!

In April, we plan to begin manufacturing eco-friendly sanitary pads, creating a small revolution in the feminine hygiene products market. We won the Wharton Africa Business Forum business plan competition in November, and will be incubated in Kenya’s first science park. We can produce and sell pads at lower cost than current market brands as well as create income-generating opportunities for women at the bottom of the pyramid. This solution has the possibility for international replication to offer a solution for other nations by creating a franchise model, not only helping us achieve sustainability but solving a major problem in a financially viable way, nation by nation.

We can do this with only $85,000 for 2010 – and once established, we have Acumen Fund, Grass Roots Business Fund, Deutsche Bank’s social investment arm and others interested in providing scale-up funding. But everyone says we must go to “family and friends” to get the production started.

How can you help?

I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished, but I really need help financially.

We have incredibly streamlined programs, with zero overhead in the States. For instance, $100 can do a heck of a lot. It can:

• Change the lives of 20 girls through Empowerment Clubs every week for a month, or

• Keep 10 girls in school for the year with sanitary pads and underwear, or

• Pay a recent High School grad as a Junior Field Officer who mentors over 250 students per week.

I hate asking for money. I never want someone (much less someone I care for) to duck when they see me, to think that if they can't give it makes things awkward. But I need help, and I don’t want to pretend that I don’t. We need contributions, and my invitation is to ask you be part of our extended ZanaA family in a new way. Frankly, I need your help to get us through the first quarter until we are able to receive a few grants that are in the pipeline starting in March or April.

I would like to ask for contributions of $100. Or less. Or more, whatever you feel comfortable giving, if you are able to give at all. I am targeting 500 people to give $100 for us to reach our quarterly fundraising goal. If we got three times this support, we could safely start our manufacturing. If I can get these funds by the end of January, we can order the manufacturing equipment to keep to our timeline!

I can't tell you what a huge change this could make, standing together.

There are other ways to plug in, too, and leverage your support:

• There are a number of congregations that support us – are you a part of a church that would be interested in getting involved? You could probably help us to quickly get a few thousand dollars

• We welcome interns –do you know some college or graduate students looking for internships or projects?

• Does your company do matching grants for its employees?

• Do you know a local Rotary club that could partner with mine for a matching grant? ( I was past president of mine in Nairobi, '06-07)

• Are there two or three people who you know who could forward this to, so you could double or triple your investment in us?

• Would you consider starting a Giving Circle, and coming up with an amount you want to raise together?

• Consider joining our ZanaAfrica Group on Facebook

I’ve never directly asked funds from anyone before, and Facebook can be kind of impersonal, but I want to invite you to be a part of something that I really believe is going to change the world for girls.

I forsee other organizations using our mentorship model in other countries. I forsee two or three country franchises in Africa for our manufacturing within five years. I forsee women in America buying our tampons and pantyliners and in so doing securing the funds for our continued work with girls. I forsee in just a few years never having to ask people for money again.

But right now, we can’t have this solution without like-minded people supporting us. Right now, girls are prostituting themselves every month so they can buy sanitary pads and stay in school. Right now, we can’t safely hire the 5 JFOs we need to reach 2,500 youth every week. Right now, we can’t upgrade our website to have JFOs blogging every day with photos to share their reality with the world. But right now, you could make this possible. Right now, you could help change the world for some very special girls in very difficult circumstances.

Will you start this year out with us? Maybe part of your new years resolution has been to engage in society, to get involved, to make your giving count more. I sincerely want to help you achieve those goals. Maybe you just like me and (if you're in the State) need a tax deduction for last year or for this year.

One girl in Kibera, when asked how she would feel if given a year’s supply of sanitary pads, whispered, “I would feel like the whole world loved me.” Lets make this happen, together. If you want to reach me directly by email, with questions or encouragement, please do: website@zanaafrica.org. Or visit our website, www.zanaafrica.org.

And let me know if there is any way, big or small, that I can be a bigger part of your lives or support you in any of your endeavors.

Happy new year to each of you, and all my love and blessings,

Megan