Every school term since 2024, Gituamba Bridge Kasarani C.B.O. has run a mentorship circle for girls in classes 6 to 8 at Gituamba Primary School, pairing them with women volunteers from the local area who work as nurses, teachers, tailors, and small business owners.
This term's cohort of 24 girls met every Friday afternoon for eight weeks to discuss topics ranging from menstrual health and hygiene to study habits, peer pressure, and goal-setting. Sessions are deliberately kept small and conversational rather than lecture-style, because our mentors have found that girls open up more when the format feels like a conversation between older and younger sisters rather than a classroom.
The term closed with a short graduation ceremony at the school hall, attended by parents, the deputy headteacher, and four visiting professionals who spoke about their own career paths, including a laboratory technologist from Kasarani Health Centre and a software trainee who grew up two streets from the school.
“Nobody had ever asked me what I wanted to be before this program. Now I tell people I want to be a lab technician, and I know the subjects I need to pass to get there.”
— A class 7 participant
Each girl also received a reusable sanitary kit, funded through small individual donations collected via our M-Pesa paybill, along with a small notebook for tracking their termly goals. Absenteeism linked to menstruation among participating girls, tracked informally with the school's guidance teacher, has visibly declined since the program began.
We are recruiting mentors for the next cohort starting in the coming term. If you are a woman working in Kasarani or nearby and can spare two hours on a Friday afternoon once a term, please get in touch through our Get Involved page.
Your donation or volunteer hour goes directly into work like the story above — not overhead.
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