Life Lifters - Kenya

Background

Since its inception, Life Lifters Kenya has been dedicated to investing in African (Kenyan) rural girls who are oftentimes locked in deep cycles of poverty, cultural limitations, and gender imbalances. Our goal as an organization is to build a safe haven where rural girls can unlock their educational and economic potential. By economically empowering girls, we ensure that most rural girls have access to quality education, mentorship, business training, and economic opportunities that positively impact their lives and that of their families and community in general.

Vienna-based World Poverty Clock indicates that more than 4.1 million women in Kenya are living below the standard poverty line. These statistics are significantly higher and saturated in slums and rural areas where women have less education and access to productive resources such as capital, land, etc. As of 2021, approximately 49.2% of the total labor force in Kenya were women (World Bank). Although this is an improvement from 2010 (47.8%), the growth is significantly slower with the majority of women (92%) earning a livelihood from informal urban economies.

Why we invest in Rural Girls

• Rural girls have limited access to educational and economic opportunities
• Rural girls are more at risk of being affected by barbaric cultural practices e.g FGM
• In Kenya, One in two girls in rural areas marries by age of 19
• Girls who live in cash-poor environments are at risk of dropping out of school.
• We believe rural girls have a massive potential that needs to be unlocked

What we have achieved in the past 6 months

Since our last conference in October, we have been more focused on ensuring that the current girls we support have access to adequate resources and support to succeed. So far:

• Two of our girls have graduated from high school and would be transitioning to college
• We are currently successfully supporting 6 teenagers through high school by providing them with tuition and basic shopping (i.e sanitary towels, soap, toothpaste, polish, etc)
• Two of our girls have been selected to join the student leadership i.e academic head and head of the health center respectively
• One of our girls won a dancing competition at her school
• We are also actively recruiting 3 more teens to join our scholarship program
• Lastly, Life Lifters is also actively improving its operational processes, we have put together a new board of directors and would be registering the project as an NGO in Kenya

I hope the following report gives you a quick review of what we are up to. We are super grateful for your continued support and lets continue to impact the world one girl at a time. Cheers!

Links:

• Our Board Of Directors