Kenya (MNN) — Young Maasai girls in rural Kenya don’t always have the opportunity to go to school. These girls are often at greater risk for things like child marriage — often to a man 20-30 years older — and the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Education offers them a head start on a brighter future.
Yet, even with access to an education, a teen Maasai girl faces another challenge: Puberty and her monthly period.
Kenya Hope serves in the Maasai community. Alexa Mueller with Kenya Hope explains, “For a Maasai girl,…she does not have access to menstrual supplies. So whenever she has her monthly bleed, very often, she’ll stay home from school and miss that time in class.”
Kenya Hope’s Girls on Mission ministry provides dignity bags to teen girls. (Photo courtesy of Kenya Hope)
It creates a compounding effect as a girl is absent from school each month.
Mueller says teen boys or men will sometimes buy a teen girl disposable pads, knowing how desperate she is for menstrual supplies. “The girl will receive it, use them, and be grateful for them. Then the same boy will come back and say, ‘Well, now you owe me.’ Well, the girl, if she says, ‘I can’t, I don’t have any money. I have no way to pay you back,’ they will ask for some kind of a physical favor in return.”
If a girl in Kenyan culture gets pregnant, she is automatically pulled from school. “Then you’re guaranteed that you will have FGM and child marriage and so forth.”
Menstrual supplies can be the linchpin that keeps Maasai girls in school and out of harm’s way.
Kenya Hope’s Girls on Mission ministry provides dignity bags to teen girls. (Photo courtesy of Kenya Hope)
That’s why Kenya Hope distributes “dignity bags” to these girls through their Girls on Mission ministry. Each dignity bag contains critical menstrual supplies that enable them to maintain their education.
“It’s amazing what a pair of underwear means to these girls – the soft cotton underwear, specifically! That is not something they have there,” says Mueller. “So these [are] coveted supplies of multiple reusable pads as well as underwear that is soft and wearable, and…laundry soap.”
Most importantly, Mueller emphasizes, “The Gospel is weaved into everything — that they have a Savior who loves them, that they are valued and precious and beautiful. [We tell them] they have a Savior who died for them and sees them. That’s life-changing!”
Pray these teen girls ultimately find true confidence in Christ.
Learn more about Kenya Hope’s ministry.
Header photo courtesy of Kenya Hope.
