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Delivering period pouches for girls in rural areas in Kenya
IAFAF has a partnership with the Mara Loita Community Rangers (MLCR), assisting and supporting their noble and
altruistic activities in Kenya, helping conserve and protect endangered wildlife and school children and orphans.
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Who are the Mara Loita Community Rangers?
The Mara Loita Community Rangers assist the local community to improve their standard of living by protecting wildlife and the forest, improving education, and creating job opportunities. They only depend on the small support from the people who can help a little.
​Feminine pads for schoolgirls
​1 million girls miss school each month in Kenya due to their period! Three isolated schools and their school’s girls are supported by the MLCR. These girls live in a remote area of Kenya. This means that they are sent to a shack to bleed freely during their periods. Many young Kenyan girls engage in prostitution just to get feminine pads. The girls in these 3 schools have a poor and very limited access to water, so reusable pads are not a solution. 65% of girls are unable to buy sanitary supplies for their menstruation.
Sometimes the girls are so desperate that they use dry leaves, old rags, share used pads and even use cow dung to try to control their period. To help this problem, MLCR supports these girls though their very limited donations, so they can remain in school all month.
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MLCR cares for many orphan children, and some kids that their parents are so poor that they can’t afford to send their kids to school. Due to this situation, many girls end up in early marriages while young boy’s look after cattle for the rest of their life.
The Forest of Loita
Loita is one of the last remaining closed-canopy forests in Kenya. The forest still supports a good number of elephants, pangolins, cape buffalo, hippo,
aardvarks, antelopes, zebras, lions, leopards, cheetah, waterbucks, cave hyraxes, yellow baboons, bushbucks, dik-dik and bush pigs.
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Threats
Loita Forest is often targeted by wildlife poachers. Elephants are in constant danger since the hills and canyons of the Loita provide an attractive
environment for elephants – and for the hidden activities of poachers. In addition, cutting down trees for timber is becoming a major threat to Loita
forest. Large parts of natural forest are gone.
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Other Challenges
Human population growth, Deforestation, Climate change, Drought, Human-wildlife conflicts, Bush-meat hunting, Poaching and lack of support.
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Rangers life in the forest
Being a ranger requires dedication and determination. They must cope with dangers that will naturally occur in the wilderness. Rangers deal with poisonous reptiles like Puff adders, spitting cobras and other aggressive animals like the cape buffalo during patrols. Carrying heavy outdoor equipment, food, water on their backpacks and walk for nine hours long distances. The rangers sometimes also have to deal with aggressive poachers and forest destroyers.
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Support this Project!
What is IAFAF doing to support them?
The Mara Loita Community Rangers whenever they get a donation, they use a portion to buy feminine pads for girls living in remote bomas in the Masai Mara region. They are sent to bleed freely on a shack when they get their period, so they miss one or two weeks every month of school each year. Therefore, they end up as child brides and the circle never ends.
IAFAF will supply 40,000 feminine pads that will help 540 girls have an education and have a better future.
Our goal was to get 540 period poaches handmade by volunteers (already achieved), with items donated for this purpose at/by the Body Shop, to help them boost up their self stem along with receiving enough feminine pads to go to school during a school year. We will go to Kenya to deliver these period pouches to the schoolgirls in person, and at the same time provide an environmental education, teach them how to avoid human-wildlife conflicts, about the importance of recycling and using recycled plastic, tin and glass to make crafts to bring some extra income to their families.
The people there has lost all their source of income gained by tourists buying their crafts, because of the pandemic. If they were poor before, they have been struggling much more these last years. This recycling craft project is a much better alternative to poaching and selling wild animals to get money.
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IAFAF has also gathered several dozens of warm and durable socks for the rangers and much needed gadgets and tools needed for their ranger activities, such as first aid kits, lamps, sunglasses, etc. This will be delivered and distributed in person by our Canadian IAFAF volunteers in Kenya.
BAD NEWS AT MRCR!
December 2023: Their main donor died
January 2024: Alfred the founder of MLCR was gored by a buffalo. He spent 2 months in a hospital
April 2024: Their land cruiser was repossessed by the bank, as they could not repay their loan to fix it. They have no money for rangers food!
HELP US TO BUY A MOTORBIKE FOR THEM!
Articles about the lack of sanitary pads in Kenya:
I wish I was a boy’: The Kenyan girls fighting period poverty | Education | Al Jazeera
Kenyan girls forced into sex in exchange for sanitary products | The Independent | The Independent
Our great local support for this project!
