Opportunity Schools Program

The world today is facing tremendous changes. Everyone needs to play a part and no woman should be left behind. The world can't achieve this without women taking an active role. Education is certainly the key driver of development, and women education is even more profiting to the community. 

Each girl or woman needs a college education or informal training to competitively meet the needs of the changing world. My community, a hugely marginalized Maasai dominated, is crippled by barriers of gender bias, cultural practices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), early and forced marriages, lack of a modern college making their women passive members of the society. They need access to affordable college and market-place training.

A college education will enable women to grow economically, socially challenge status quo, improve their self-esteem and confidence, voice their ideas and participate in board meetings making decisions on important matters in the society.

Gone are the days where women just stay at home to nurse children and do house chores. Women now need to come on board and voice their views and change the world. Education has been proven to be a tool of empowerment, improves life chances of millions of marginalized girls. To overcome the barriers of gender inequality, retrogressive harmful cultural practices, and the odd perception that women cannot work, education need to be availed to them.

A lack of education, as schools in Kajiado are few and far apart, colleges are not available, access to quality tertiary education is a challenge to the Maasai girls who are already battling other challenges.

In my community, Kajiado County, about 200, 000 Maasai women are still stuck to the socio-cultural practices without an education. 100, 000 women have no college education. In every 10 women,5 women missed school, 3 dropped out of school and 1 has no college education. And I ask, is this the kind of the world we are creating leaving women behind? A community where more than 200,000 women are illiterate is a global threat. 52 Million in Sub-Saharan Africa are illiterate and 16 Million at risk of missing school.

The solution offers an opportunity to access affordable, quality, modern, market place relevant college education to the Maasai women and girls to help them gain skills relevant to earn an income. My friend and I started an early childhood development education training college in 2015 in the community. The college targeted the 200,000 women in Kajiado County to have access to affordable quality tertiary education.

It trains early education teachers for pre schools. Now, the college needs to expand to accommodate more commercial courses, technical courses and integrate technology in its training. The solution targets to offer technical courses like catering, business and fashion courses to the women whose education was cut short by harmful cultural practices and are married or at home. So far, 40 women graduated, and 26 are employed. 

It also focuses on mentoring more primary and secondary schools girls to nurture their careers to avoid the trap of community cultural barriers.  Learning and training to use advanced technology like smart boards, computers, internet and coding to help women compete in an already aggressive world. The solution mentors young women on how to benefit from technology, look for opportunities and earn an income from what they learn.

My solution targets more than 200 000 girls who are at risk of missing college education. It targets their families, and the community of Kajiado County in Kenya. The solution targets to challenge the Maasai culture which continues to place high preference on males, disadvantaging women and girls’ access to education. Women already face the challenge of accessing primary and secondary education; it is an almost impossible occurrence for them to access tertiary education. The Maasai girls and women are faced with a myriad of barriers that stand in their way to access education. In Kajiado, only 2 percent of women attend college/university, only 1.4 percent completed college. Every year of school, 16,000 girls drop out of primary school, 6,000 drop out of secondary school, 3 percent join college and 1 percent drops on the way. Through the college I started, I mentor students on their career choices. With the efforts, 11 girls are placed in different colleges and 2 are in university. Education keeps them in school than choosing early marriage.  It will empower them to seek opportunities, earn a living, improve their families, and contribute actively in their society. Educated women will even have healthier and smaller families.

Expanding my college gives an opportunity to more women in the community helping more marginalized women access formal and informal training. The more than 200,000 women in Kajiado, who lack or risk lacking college education will have an opportunity to improve their skills and earning power. Technology integrated training will give the women skills to use technology to develop. Informal training will help the girls and young women at home or married, develop skills on technical and commercial courses. These are the important 21st century skills needed for development. They will also stay in school and skip marrying early.

My solution is innovative because of the element of tech-integrated training. What makes it the most innovative is the inclusive, equity and outreach aspect of the marginalized Maasai girls and young women.

In 2017, before my college was ready to offer training, I volunteered in a teachers college located in Makueni County, a neighboring county. Since there was no college in my community, all the young people went to that college, 400 miles away from Kajiado. Learning and training never used technology. They used a blackboard, no computers, assessment of learners was done manually, most of the tutors were incompetent technologically, and women were very few. The learning environment was not friendly to girls and young women encouraging them to drop out of school. 

In another early childhood teachers training college started in  Kajiado (though now closed) could not offer accredited and market-relevant courses. No technology was used. In general, a majority of colleges in Kenya do not integrate technology in their training. A majority of teachers are computer illiterate. I hate to see a teacher teaching using the same old methodology without any technology use. 

My solution targets a large number of women in the community as the principal priority. It targets to use technology in all its services from admission, training and product development. I want to see a woman using technology to brand her baking services; that is efficient. The solution aims to help women manage the changing male dominated world using technology.

My solution is a process that is already in place. It is a program to give Maasai girls and young women an opportunity to access college education affordably and within the community. The opportunity is community centered to help women meet the needs of the current society. They will be trained based on technology and access to Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) any time. The women will also use the skills to solve some of the pressing challenges facing their families,the community as they compete globally and succeeding. 

The process will use the internet of things (IoT) to offer further learning opportunities to the Maasai girls and young women. The internet of things, I believe, will give the women an opportunity to connect to the world, learn the global trends on development, try new opportunities and improve their lives. The aim is to make the girls and women be locally but globally learning. Every student will also be able to access an internet connected computer, can easily study, try to develop a product and share with the tutors through the VLE technology. This will encourage them to be innovative, active and willing to learn taking away limiting barriers to learning and training. With a network connecting them to the world, the Masai women will now see the need to stay in school, join the workforce than getting married without a skill. Imagine booking online a service from a Maasai woman ran saloon, and get the service, how would you feel? 

The use of Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is a new live learning technology that allows the students to learn online or offline, access any learning and training resources, interact with the tutors, watch live videos of practical lessons and share their innovations. This technology is already being used in some international schools in Kenya that are meant for the rich families only. At Banda School, the technology is already in place.  The VLE will be accessible to girls and women during school session and off-campus session, and will be accessible to also their parents. The idea is to ensure the girls and women can’t miss out of their learning opportunities even when they are in the village. The offline access to VLE is a breakthrough to the girls and women as they are from poor backgrounds which may limit their learning and training. This means, however poor they can be, they can still access the VLE and learn without incurring any costs. 

As it will use high quality interactive multi-touch screens, smart boards and projectors-the idea is to expose the students from a marginalized community to different types of technologies to broaden their thinking. 

There will be availability of Ipads that can be lend out to the students at the ICT library section, just like the way books are lend out. This opportunity will help the women from poor families to access computer services even in their fire places and cowsheds as they milk the cows and sheep.

Access to quality, modern, affordable and market place relevant learning and training for girls and young women are not only important but an urgent need in Kajiado. Cutting edge technology integrated training will jump-start the potentials of over 200,000 women whose potentials have been ignored from many decades.

Technology makes learning enjoyable and interactive. It stimulates interest in learning as well as creativity. In Kajiado, this is a case of cultural misgivings, school drop-out due to unsafe and unwelcoming learning environments, too much peer influence to stick to traditions and culture, male dominance and the acute belief that women have no value. To solve this problem, the solution aims to use interactive technology.  I believe learning can best be enjoyable if technology is made available.

According to the SATIPS (Society for Support And Training In Prep. Schools) Magazine, publishing the Case Study about The Banda's e-learning programme in their May 2015 issue (https://www.bandaschool.com/userfiles/banda/PDFs/School-life/SATIPS_Mag_Banda_Case_Study.pdf ) research on Banda School in Nairobi Kenya; technology has proved to change the way learning and teaching becomes successful. To impact on the lives of the more than 200,000 women, the solution aims to leverage on such technology.

The solution aims at improving the social and economic livelihoods of the girls and young women in the community through quality learning and training. Help them gain a skill and use it to power their lives. At the end of the learning and training, they can start their own enterprises, or get formal employment. They will influence their families and the community stands to develop economically. The process or learning and training will also improve their confidence, clarity and decision making skills to solve challenges in the community.

According to the CEO and Founder of Soronko Academy, Ghana, Regina Honu confirms that technology bridges many gaps and essential in empowering women. It gives them confidence, can earn a living, and more, improve the world. My solution will impact the girls and young women in my community, country and the world if scaled. Technology integrated training can change the future of the community through creation of a women workforce.

I currently trained 40 students on Early Childhood Development training, impacting 40 families. The current number of students is 26 and 500 girls are in mentorship program in 10 schools in Kajiado (6 primary and 4 secondary schools). The mentorship is meant to raise awareness on career choices among girls, guide and recommend career choices to young women who are completing secondary and primary education. The program also trains school teachers on how to support the students in school and at home to follow their career dreams and how to nurture them, impacting on another 100 teachers. So far, the ten schools have reported improved confidence and self esteem among their students.

I am looking forward to enrolling about 50 young women, mentor 6500 girls in secondary and primary school, and support 20 young women in small enterprises next year. In five years, with more opportunities coming by, the Opportunity Schools Program aims to reach out to 14,000 young women and men in the community. This means, I will reach out to more than 7000 girls and young women in Kajiado in five years. 

The number of women to be impacted will have better living standards, healthy, free from cultural abuses, and can voice their ideas on social and economic matters in the community. The married young women will now be able to make sustainable and relevant decisions about the education of their children. The idea is to improve the livings for women in the community.

I intend to change individuals in the community, their families and the community. To achieve this, I plan to source funding from well wishers, possible potential donors and local government to reach over 500 individuals. That will translate to 500 families, and about 5000 people. I want to see more women next year looking for an opportunity to get a skill or training, that change of attitude is through the mentorship program in schools. With the support of community leaders, the number of school girls dropping on monthly basis is dropping compared to the past. I aim to collaborate with them more, to see that each family considers taking one girl to college. 

Some sponsors and the Constituency Development Fund have already expressed interest to support more girls through bursaries and scholarship to pursue commercial courses. I therefore intend to expand the college adding more commercial course for the girls and young women in the community. The target is to reach 100 girls and young women on bursaries and scholarship. Once this happens, the college will recommend them to potential employers, institutions that can support women enterprises and any other available opportunities through an on-campus and off-campus mentorship.

I also plan to partner with companies like Google, IBM, Safaricom in Kenya, Strathmore University (offered to train the students and teachers on technology development and business skills), National Industrial and Training Institute(NITA) for exchange programs, resources allocation and employment/internship consideration. In five years, 7000 women to be well placed.

Well, for any idea that aims to impact on a large number of people, funding becomes a big challenge. It costs huge amounts of money to get technology devises, more tutors with fewer trainees for each tutor, quality learning and training facilities. Many people think, a 21st century learning and training facility is simply a blackboard, desks and students- no, it is more of that. Getting this is not easy. 

Another challenge is cultural. My community is faced with the traditional practices that do not give women autonomy to choose what to do with their lives. A majority must get approval from their husbands/fathers/brothers whether to enroll for a college education or not which mostly is faced with disapproval. Men feel like, 'What is the importance of a woman going to school? Does that make her a better wife?'  

Technically, many families are extremely poor. To get advanced gadgets to learn is difficult. It is therefore difficult for these women in the community, the community and the community leaders to learn new trends in development. As a result, just education a community without exposing them to technology, may not do much as they will be passed by many opportunities that rely on technology. Their poor background gives them an excuse not to continue with education and exchange the girls for cows in form of dowry. With this, attaining the goals becomes difficult save for the continuous and rigorous mentorship program which helps to change the girls' attitudes and their families'.

Financial challenge- I currently have four dairy cows, a corn farm and a ten pig farm. The produce from these runs the day-to-day needs of the college. Students pay some fees which helps to pay the tutors and maintaining facilities, and paying rent for the college. I also get well-wishers who fund certain items like buying books for the school. However this is not enough. I am currently working on a fundraising mechanism, developing proposals and meeting sponsors to support more students on bursaries and scholarships. From my salary as a conservation education officer for African Conservation Centre ( acc@acc.or.ke ), I fund certain projects like transport, mentorship, branding and communication.

Cultural barrier: Although culture is important, it stands in the way of women access to quality learning and training. There are many harmful retrogressive practices that bar a woman from going to school. Once girls are 11 years, they are approved for FGM and early marriage. Men also do not support women going to school as it is a waste of time. I started the mentorship program way back I was at the University with the aim that they will value themselves, develop a sense of self-awareness, and the opportunities ahead of them. I also hold community barazas/forums to sensitize the community on the value of girl's education and change their cultural attitudes.

I am planning to have more sponsors, local government and institutions coming on board to fund the education of girls from poor families.  

Currently, the Solution team in involving 4 full-time tutors, 2 Physical Education part-time tutors, a full-time receptionist, two full-time cooks, full-time security guard, and 1 contractual ICT expert. The others are casual staff who offer service only when needed, about 4. Currently I am engaging a website developer who is developing the college website instead of using the blog. A volunteer American architect is also designing the college facilities as we plan to shift to the new college land.  

My friend and I are educationist. We studied in the same university, same education degree and are professional teachers. We have been doing girls mentorship since 2014 and having been born, grew and residents of Kajiado, we have a better understanding of the community needs, behavior, attitudes and their perspective about education and life as a whole.

We are authors, and community volunteers who have influenced certain aspects in the community including leadership, education matters, schools and provision of bursaries to school children. With our experience, we then felt we can start a college for the community to try and develop certain elements that we saw missing in other education providers. We are first hand victims of the problem as our immediate sisters and relatives, parents never had an education for them to be married early. Our families do not have any salaried people and this burns our desire to change the situation.

Being educators, we stand a greater chance to influence the future of our community with the talents, gifts and knowledge we have gathered in the past ten years. 

Our communication skills, public relations, passion for the community, love for education, being beneficiaries of education, computer literacy and networking capacity places us in the best position to deliver this solution to the challenge which is directly affecting our community.

To achieve the goal of giving an opportunity to girls and young women in Maasai community who are coupled with every excuse not to access formal and informal training, Opportunity Schools Program seeks partnership to:

• Expand the college and include more technical, commercial and market-demand courses
• Mentor 6500 school girls in primary and secondary schools on their careers, STEM courses, attitudes and behavior change
• Introduce technology through use of Virtual ;earning Environment, interactive smart boards, computers, Ipads, projectors and world-class data systems
• Brand its education opportunity for girls and young women to meet the global needs

In my community, inequality and gender biases have placed many girls and young women and their families in a disadvantaged situation. A majority are unable to fend for their families. in the month of April, 36 girls are at a risk of dropping out of school due to FGM and forced marriage. These and other social problems are the issues my solution aims to solve. My solution aims to impact the community, the girls, the young women, families, community leaders, and the local government with positive attitudes, that education can help solve gender problems. 

A college education help girls and young women have an opportunity to improve their earning power,  have healthier and smaller families,many will be able to make decisions on their education, careers, marriage, economic choices as well as political options.

The community, to which the girls and young women come from, will have an improved economic back up as its human capital will be empowered to sustainably support economic growth. There will be fewer maternal and birth related deaths as more people in the community will have informed decisions.

Poverty level will decrease as many families will be able to earn an income unlike in the past where only men were expected to earn an income. Now women can contribute to the family's economic growth as well.

Globally, the GDP of economies will grow as women economic power grows. My solution solely relies on education and technology to improve the economic power of women.

The college have a fundraising plan and in the initial stage, relying on donations, fees from students, and grants from the local government. The college aims to keep dairy cows, pigs and a cereal farm. These farming will help in providing the college wit meals for the students and staff, will sell most of the produce like milk to the community and the returns to be used to develop the college. This is an initiative to raise an income for the college apart from donations and the fees paid by the students to enable the college maximize on its provision of education services to the community. 

The college will also sell services like catering, conferencing, consultancy in schools to back up its revenue sources. As a majority of students are from the poor families, the college will come up with a scholarship programme that would attract donors to fund the education of students. With this support, the college will not have to suffer from a majority of students lacking fees and will run most of its expenses as expected.

The students who will be on practical courses will offer services to the community like beauty therapy, repair and maintenance of electronics. The income will be shared between them and the college sustaining the quality and state of facilities. Training on technology use will be done in the community schools to teachers and students to help bridge the gap in schools and the income still goes back to the college revenue.

The biggest reason that makes me apply for Solve, is financial and technical challenges. I believe Solve will help me have the dream college for the girls and young women, the community and the county. With the funding from Solve, I can be able to meet the financial needs of the college. The college can purchase its own land, build its own designed buildings and come up with a convenient learning and training environment for the vulnerable which has never been made available in my community. This will help, for the first time in history build a world class college, that meets the needs of the community and the 21st century.

The technical support is that, through Solve, many partnerships are likely to help build a sustainable college that relies on first class technology.  I believe in partnerships and this will build a network for student's referrals, and product testing. Solve will expose my solution to new tested technologies, and with the world class opportunity to associate with MIT, will give the clients an opportunity to experience MIT while in my local community. This is a chance for the community to rise, for girls and young women to see the world as it is in the 21st century, for the community to challenge its practices. Therefore, I am applying for Solve, because of my vulnerable community.

Finally, the Solve award will give the college a world class taste, global relevance impacting more on the target population.

Partnerships build products and services. The geographical positioning of my community, being marginalized and the gender threat, partnership are going to help support the many girls and women who get qualifications but with less opportunities to progress.  

This is an opportunity I craved for many years.I look forward to partner with technology based institutions to advanced education of the community that gives relevance to the market needs. 

Exchange programmes can be useful to the clients as partnerships will help strengthen such programmes. I will be able to access mentorship for my students and can market their products through a wide range of networks through partnerships. Further, the partnerships I will seek will help when the project will be scaling to other countries in future.

MIT is my dream organization since I was a child. Now with the solution, i esteem MIT because of its tech culture. I would like to partner with MIT for a world class technology classes in my college, referrals and exchange programmes. MIT can come in providing digital content, electronic devices and more, help my students develop solutions that will be first class community centred. With the partnership of MIT, my solution will impact so many people not only in my community but also outside my community. 

GM organization will help in the innovation department of the college as one of the courses will be on motors and engineering. This will enable the students to have mentors from a reputable company building their capacity as young people.

I would love to partner with Soronko Academy. The women empowerment on technology at Soronko Academy inspires my dream. This would be an opportunity for girls and young women in my community to have an African institution to identify themselves with and for future bench marking. I am inspired by Regina Honu and her coming to mentor the women in my college would be a great opportunity for the solution.

I would like to partner with Google for more opportunities for my students as well as for internships. All my students must study a computer course. Google would mentor them on how they can pursue their careers with the use of technology. The others are UN, UNICEF and Melinda & Gates Foundation

My solution, a greater part is about women. My solution focuses on decreasing threats directed to women through FGM, gender violence, male chauvinism and cultural practices like early forced marriages. It aims to improve their lives by decreasing the level of illiteracy of women, empowering them with the best skills, practices and knowledge that they can use to advance their lives and careers. 

My solution aims to socially disrupt the status quo in the training and learning sector, by offering a world class opportunity, high technology training and a women-friendly learning environment. With the technology of Virtual Learning Environment, the prize will help boost the goal of the solution by helping girls and women access learning anywhere at home, thus keeping them in training and learning.

The solution is best suited for the prize as it integrates technology in its training and majorly focuses on women empowerment. 

My team will use the prize to access the best technology in the world and providing access to the best technology to the women. It will use it to purchase Ipads, tablets and laptops that would be lend out to vulnerable students when they are off-campus. This will keep them connected to the world, learning with no limitation hence improving their efficiency and effectiveness of their learning.

The prize will also support in developing a world class IT lab which will be accessible to the community. The scale of impact will be high as many people can access technology at the college.

Any society that prioritizes STEM course is a society that prioritizes its economic value. My solution aims to empower girls in the mentorship programme, to pursue careers on STEM. Most of the courses, which are tech based, are STEM courses like mechanical engineering, wielding, accounting, ICT, coding and graphics. These course will need technology based, advanced equipment, an advanced laboratory and space for product development.

My solution pegs on the focus of empowering women and girls. The many barriers like male perception that women can't pursue STEM courses, need to be halted. My team will use the prize to mentor as many young women and girls in colleges and high school to consider pursuing careers on STEM. It will also tap the potential of women who are already married and are young through the adult literacy programme to pursue short technology courses like graphics, ICT, general computer studies among  other course to improve their earning capacity hence impacting their families economically.

The team will use the prize to develop and advanced lab, buy equipment, and support the mentorship programme. It will also use the funds to conduct workshops for students in secondary schools, sponsor best girls in STEM subjects, and grow a STEM department that is market-relevant. 

My solution target population are women who are at a risk or are already risked not having secondary education and college education. This is because of the many social, economic and political problems that face them. In this Covid-19 pandemic for example, 6 girls have already been married while still in primary school education. These 6 girls will make a family with an illiterate husband,an illiterate family and their children will be illiterate. My solution aims to broker a stop to this cycle of illiteracy by ensuring the girls and young women, at least have some formal or informal learning and training. To achieve this, my team incorporates a friendly learning opportunity where the young married women and their husbands pursue some courses like ICT, beauty, catering, embroidery, and animal health.

This opportunity gives them a chance to have training and skills within a sort time withoutinconveniencing their families. The training will also be friendly to the adults as tablets and ipads can be lend to them so that they can go on learning during the training period while fending their families. 

My solution qualify for this prize as it aims at empowering adult women and giving them a opportunity to earn an income, instead of their career lives ending at marriage. Their husbands will also play a role encouraging them to reduce gender violence on their women.

My team will use the prize to ensure adult education is friendly to married young women and can access technology gadget.