Delivering period pouches for girls in rural areas in Kenya

Mara Loita Community Rangers

IAFAF collaborates with the Mara Loita Community Rangers (MLCR) to support their commendable efforts in Kenya, focusing on the conservation of endangered wildlife and the welfare of schoolchildren and orphans.

Who are the Mara Loita Community Rangers?

The Mara Loita Community Rangers work to enhance the local community's quality of life by safeguarding wildlife and forests, improving education, and creating job opportunities. Their initiatives rely heavily on modest contributions from those willing to help.

Feminine Pads for Schoolgirls

In Kenya, 1 million girls miss school each month due to menstruation. The MLCR supports three isolated schools, where girls face significant challenges, including being sent away during their periods. Many young girls' resort to prostitution to obtain feminine pads, and with limited access to water, reusable options are not viable. A staggering 65% of girls cannot afford sanitary supplies.

In their desperation, some girls resort to using dry leaves, old rags, sharing used pads, or even cow dung to manage their periods. To address this issue, MLCR provides essential support through their limited donations, ensuring these girls can stay in school throughout the month.

Additionally, MLCR cares for many orphaned children and those whose families cannot afford education, leading to early marriages for girls and young boys being forced to tend to cattle for 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.

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.

Other Challenges

Human population growth, Deforestation, Climate change, Drought, Human-wildlife conflicts, Bush-meat hunting, Poaching and lack of support.

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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What is IAFAF doing to support them?

The Mara Loita Rangers allocate a portion of their donations to purchase feminine pads for girls in remote bomas the Masai Mara. These girls often miss one to two weeks of school each month during their periods, leading to a cycle of child marriage and limited opportunities.

IAFAF plans to provide 40,000 feminine pads, enabling 540 girls to pursue their education and secure a brighter future.

Our goal was to create 540 handmade period pouches with items donated by the Body Shop, which we have already achieved. These pouches will help boost the girls' self-esteem while ensuring they have enough feminine pads for the school year. We will travel to Kenya to personally deliver these pouches to the schoolgirls, while also providing environmental education on avoiding human-wildlife conflicts and the importance of recycling, using materials like plastic, tin, and glass to create crafts that can generate extra income for their families.

The community has lost its primary source of income from tourism due to the pandemic, exacerbating their struggles. This recycling craft project offers a sustainable alternative to poaching and selling wildlife for money.

IAFAF has also collected numerous warm and durable socks for the rangers, along with essential gadgets and tools for their activities, such as first aid kits, lamps, and sunglasses. Our Canadian IAFAF volunteers will personally deliver and distribute these items in Kenya.