This year, candidates sitting for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in Kirinyaga County, are set to benefit from an initiative spearheaded by County Women Representative Jane Njeri Maina. The programme involves facilitating both boys and girls with personal effects as part of a drive towards supporting education and gender equity in the county.
MP Jane Njeri Maina has ensured the lion’s share of the National Government Affirmative Action Fund goes towards education. She therefore intends to use this fund to distribute dignity bags to candidates in all secondary schools within her constituency. The bag contained soap, toothpaste, a vest, a brush, crocs, and another one with adding sanitary pads for the girls, a very vital requirement for them.
While speaking during a distribution event at Kimwathi Day Secondary School in Gichugu, Kirinyaga, MP Jane Njeri urged society to take care of the boy child just as it does the girl child. She said there is a need to have the boy child taken into consideration in issues of empowerment by including him in some initiatives so that, when empowering them, it will be done in a balanced way for the two genders to live in coexistence.
Though with a small allocation to the NGAAF kitty, MP Njeri Maina is hopeful about growing the program. She wishes to seek partnerships that could strengthen this initiative and increase its coverage to many students. Such an initiative is proactive to counteract issues of funding liquidity associated with limited funding in an attempt to guarantee students continued support.
The MP Njeri initiative responds to the latest concerns in society. She said Generation Z recently took to the streets to protest against imbalances in resource distribution within the country. To that end, the program sets out to offer support to the youth in terms of a prescriptive distribution of resources.
MP Jane Njeri Maina challenged other leaders within Kirinyaga County to borrow a leaf from her efforts in trying to solve challenges facing the youth. She called for teamwork in solving such issues to ensure no student misses out on what is available in their institutions that can help them prosper.