A lightbulb moment

Raw audio of an interesting story that I was unable to fit into the Breaking Poverty's Grip video. Threw in a few photos, but it's very raw.

A Lightbulb Moment, high res version from Gina Duclayan on Vimeo.

Breaking Poverty's Grip

Working with financial institutions and girls’ programs in Kenya and Uganda, researchers from the Population Council are developing appropriate ways for adolescent girls to save money. Population Council staff member Karen Austrian describes the situation of girls who live in poverty and teens Diana and Josephine discuss why they save.

Medium Breaking Poverty's Grip from Gina Duclayan on Vimeo.

A dearth of safe spaces for girls

The Binti Pamoja Center in Kibera—with help from the Population Council, the Global Financial Education Program (GFEP), and the Nike Foundation—set out to build on their current program in order to expand safe spaces and skills opportunities for adolescent girls in Kibera. Together with the Council, Binti conducted a mapping project of existing and potential safe spaces and programs for girls in Kibera. Binti graduates were trained by Council staff in research techniques and were supported throughout the data collection period. The results of the mapping project showed that:

• The majority of youth-serving organizations in Kibera were reaching older boys and young men,
• Some villages in Kibera had several safe spaces while others had none, and
• Less than 1 percent of girls in Kibera had access to safe, gender-segregated programs.

The Population Council’s Safe and Smart Savings project addresses these challenges in Kibera.

Do these accounts actually help girls?

Preliminary data in Kenya suggest that the combination of safe savings and educational meetings with friends in safe spaces improve the lives of girls in many ways.

Girls who participated had more friends, a greater ability to get around on their own, and less biased attitudes about women.

Further, they had greater financial literacy and savings and improved talks with parents on financial issues.

Specific findings include:

• Compared to non-participants, participants were more likely to have been to a bank, to have used a bank’s services, and to be saving on a weekly basis.
• Participants were at least two times as likely as non-participants to have discussed money management issues with a parent.
• Participants were significantly more likely than non-participants to say that they can go alone to the market, school, a friend’s home, and a youth group meeting.
• Participants were significantly less likely than non-participants to agree that “Girls are not as good as boys in school.” Similarly, participants were significantly less likely than non-participants to agree that some girls deserve to be raped because of how they behave.
• Participants were significantly more likely than non-participants to know at least one contraceptive method and to know that HIV can be transmitted through sexual intercourse.

Girls' Choice Savings Accounts

Population Council staff members are working with two financial institutions in Kenya and two in Uganda that are developing ways for low-income clients to save money. We are working closely with them to develop appropriate products and services for adolescent girls. We are also partnering with MicroSave, a consulting company specializing in financial product development. Girls who open these special savings accounts are able to make deposits of very small sums, many times less than a dollar, and in return they are required to attend regular peer group meetings with mentors who teach them how to budget and set goals, as well as about health and safety.

Danger and social isolation of slum life

Life in the slums of Nairobi can be perilous, particularly for adolescent girls. Consider:

• Only half of girls in Nairobi's Kibera slum report having many friends in their neighborhood,
• Only a quarter of girls have a safe place in the community to meet their friends,
• Fifty-five percent of girls live with neither or only one parent,
• Among girls aged 10–19 who have ever had sex, 34 percent did not want to have sex the first time they did,
• 60 percent of girls aged 10–19 consider themselves at risk for being raped.

Safe and Smart Savings Products

In Kenya, 60 percent of Nairobi’s nearly 3 million inhabitants live in slum areas characterized by high levels of poverty and HIV. Kibera, the largest of these slums, is about 2.5 square kilometers and home to almost 800,000 people, commonly migrants from rural areas. Life is particularly perilous for adolescent girls in slums, such as Kibera, as they become adults. Girls in the slums face a number of vulnerabilities, including living in social isolation, often with only one or neither parent and without the support of school or family. Girls also lack safe and supportive places in which to socialize, learn life skills, obtain critical reproductive health information, and develop relationships with mentors and role models in their community. Most reproductive health programs target older women, while the participants in youth programs are overwhelmingly older boys.

Girls in these slums also lack formal, accessible ways to save their money, which substantially increases their risk and vulnerability. Girls without safe places to store their savings have been robbed; suffered harassment by family members, boyfriends, husbands, and others in their communities; and become targets of sexual violence. Having access to savings accounts can help alleviate some of these abuses, facilitate the practice of saving, and increase adolescent girls’ economic stability as they move toward adulthood.

Working with microfinance institutions and commercial banks in Kenya and Uganda that have already developed ways for low-income clients to save money, the Population Council has designed appropriate products and services for adolescent girls, and delivered then through a program, Safe and Smart Savings Products for Vulnerable Adolescent Girls in Kenya and Uganda, that encourages their participation and empowerment. The girls meet in groups where they learn basic savings and budgeting skills, as well as information about HIV and reproductive health, all in a girl-only space where they are safe from harassment.

Over the next few weeks I will be detailing this project with maps, photos, podcasts, audio slideshows, and video. I look forward to sharing it with you.