Jielimishe GEC project is one of the Girls Education Challenge program seeking to improve life chances of up to one Million Marginalized Girls. The project is funded by the UK government through Department for International Development (DfID). The title of the project is improved school attendance and learning for vulnerable Kenyan girls through an integrated intervention also known as Jielimishe GEC Project.

Jielimishe GEC project is one of the existing education projects in the country whose major focus is to improve enrolment, attendance, retention and learning through its targeted integrated intervention. The project is funded by the UK government (UKAID) through Department for International Development (DfID) and is being implemented by I Choose Life Africa and her partners; Kenya Red Cross Society and SoS Children’s Villages Kenya. The project seeks to improve life chances of marginalized girls in Kenya through education, through an integrated intervention and multi-level approach.

The project seeks to address 5 key challenges affecting marginalized girls’ attendance to school and learning. These challenges are: Cultural barriers, quality of teaching, leadership and management of schools, inadequate infrastructure, and inconsistent implementation of MoEST pro girl education policy and lack of adequate motivation for girls to attend, stay in school and learn. The consortium envisions that, with the girl child at the core, as a result of addressing the school environment (the quality of teaching, infrastructure and teacher attitudes); the girls’ community (parents/primary care givers, community gate keepers/resource persons) as well as government policies and their implementation the marginalized girls shall enroll, attend, stay in school and learn ultimately resulting increasing their life chances.

I Choose life-Africa and her strategic partners seek to achieve the following objectives:

1. To strengthen target communities to develop mechanisms that encourage girls to attend and stay in school
2. To strengthen schools (teaching, management and policies) to ensure girls stay in school and learn.
3. To improve school infrastructure through increased resource mobilization
4. To advocate for full implementation of Ministry of Education pro-girl policy
5. To motivate and inspire girls to stay in school through mentorship.

Jielimishe Girls Education Challenge project aims to improve education outcomes to better life chances of 10,170 marginalized girls in Laikipia, Meru and Mombasa counties. The project runs the intervention in a total of 60 schools (40 Secondary and 20 Primary), 20 in Laikipia (10 Secondary and 10 Primary), 20 in Meru (10 Secondary and 10 Primary) and 20 (all secondary) in Mombasa. In Primary the project targets grade 4 to 7 while in secondary it targets form 1 and 2. Besides girls in school, the project also targets 500 out of school girls with a broad objective of having them enrol, attend and stay in school and learn. Since this is a research project, Jielimishe GEC works with 20 control schools for comparative reasons with the interventions schools as far as demonstration of the effectiveness, relevance, and impact of the project on improving quality of education is concern.