Programs

This is an advocacy project which aims at an increased priority on adolescents, especially on very young adolescent girls, in national development policies and programmes, particularly increased availability of comprehensive sexuality education information and sexual and reproductive health information. It involves a multi stakeholder engagement to drive the advocacy agenda. The project also seeks to empower youths to meaningfully engage in both regional and national Sexual and Reproductive Health programming and policy development.

The project seeks to Harness Sports, Creative Arts and Popular Culture for HIV Prevention among adolescents in Nairobi and Mombasa informal settlements. It is an evidence-based intervention that will ensure adolescents (10-19 years) become responsive, are meaningfully connected with the project to trigger their intrinsic motivation for behavior change. It will build the capacity of the adolescents to determine their lives and access to HIV prevention services. The project shall adopt an innovative and unique model to INSPIRE, EMPOWER, ACTIVATE and CELEBRATE the adolescents.

This is an advocacy intervention within Nairobi County that will see an inclusion of an NCD budget line in the fiscal year 2017/18. The advocacy specific activities are/were to gather evidence for NCDs in Nairobi on the budgeting status and disseminate the information through a fact sheet to key stakeholders. In addition, the intervention has mobilized civil society organizations and private sector in health to advocate for inclusion of the NCD budget line through a memo/communique to the county government. The project outcomes include an NCD budget line included in the 2017/18 budget, the county government establishes a task force that will see the progress of the advocacy work, the CSOs and Private sector partners in health participate in the task force as well as the budgeting process and push for the inclusion of an NCD budget line in various forums. ICL works with like-minded organizations who are C4C champions in Kenya to leverage on similar activities that target the same stakeholders.

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.

The triple helix Annual conference, Africa chapter is organized by  I choose Life- Africa in partnership with the International Triple Helix Association and other partners. The inaugural event took place on April 5^th -6^th at the University of Nairobi with the second triple Helix Conference in Africa set for March 2018.

The conference employs the quadruple helix approach of bringing together the Government, the Academia, the Private sector and the CSOs in accelerating development. There are opportunities in submission of abstracts, participation as delegates, exhibition of products and technologies and sponsorship in hosting the event. In the Summit that was held in April 2017, over 100 abstracts were received with 1200 delegates participating.

Determined Resilient Empowered Aids- free Mentored safe is a two years initial intervention with a goal of reducing new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) ages 10-24 in the focus counties by 40% (percent) (in two years) through the provision of a tailored, comprehensive and evidence-informed service package targeting AGYW who are at the highest risk of HIV infection.

The initiative acknowledges that keeping adolescent girls and young women HIV free also positively impact their overall health, education, development, and wellbeing. The DREAMS strategy underscores the provision of adolescent friendly services and AGYW empowerment in all spheres of life. Through the interventions, various involvement of the community structures put in place to ensure that all the sexual reproductive health services provided are AGYW friendly.

Interventions under DREAMS are tiered based on appropriateness of the cohort of 10-14, 15-19 and 20-24years. The project seeks to work with all stakeholders including relevant national and county governments’ ministries and departments, faith based organizations (FBOs), civil society organizations (CSOs), schools and vocational institutions and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to help girls develop into determined, resilient, empowered, aids-free, mentored, and safe (DREAMS) women.