One day in late 2022, Nadhifa Jama was going about her normal house chores in Likoni when she heard a knock on the door.
She opened to find a 12-year-old girl.
The girl looked at her, desperate, with sweat pouring down her face and visibly exhausted.
“She was looking for a job! A 12-year-old girl looking for a job, any job so she could get money. And it was a school day,” Jama told the Star.
The girl, who asked to do the laundry, told Jama she lived with her aunt.
But the aunt was not very supportive as she was also struggling.
“I gave her some money and asked her to buy some food,” Jama said.
About a week later, the girl came back.
That is when Jama decided to follow up with the girl's school and her guardian.
Her story checked out.
The school had similar cases of girls missing school to go out in search of menial jobs to enable them buy sanitary pads.
“I found out there were many cases of defilement of the girls as they tried looking for money to buy pads. Most of the cases went unreported because the girls were too afraid to report,” Jama said.
Teenage girls in Likoni find it difficult to access sanitary towels because they are expensive.
Sometimes they fall victim to sexual and gender-based violence in the process of trying to obtain these pads.
Jama then decided to run a pad drive in 2023, so she could help such vulnerable girls.
The drive attracted Agnes Nzomo, 19, a victim of exploitation by a boda boda rider.
Nzomo told the Star when she was about 15, she was unable to get sanitary towels because she comes from humble background.
“I used rags but these kept giving me infections. So I decided I would seek money through any means necessary. In the process a boda boda guy told me he could help me,” she said.
Help she got, but only in return for sex.
Nzomo found herself pregnant and now has a three-year-old daughter.
When she heard about Jama’s pad drive, she volunteered to help so as to prevent other vulnerable girls from undergoing a similar ordeal.
Through the Tubonge Youth Initiative, the two started a programme called “Big and Bold Sister Talk” programme.
The programme runs the drive and has set up a pad bank at the Likoni Youth Empowerment Centre, where girls pick sanitary towels every month.
“We have started with 12 girls but we hope we can increase the number to about 50 in the next few weeks,” Jama said.
But the number of girls in need of sanitary towels is overwhelming.
“The demand is so much more than we can deliver and that is why we have to verify any girl’s situation before enrolling her in our programme. We could do with help from other well-wishers,” she said.
On average, the two said, vulnerable girls in Likoni miss about 15 days of school per term due to their menstrual cycle.
“The teenage girls will miss classes when in their periods, making them lose out on education as their peers continue learning,” Jama said.
Similar initiatives have been run by different organisations, but she felt they are not sustainable, as most drives are held once in six months, or even once a year.
“That is not as helpful as should be. Girls have periods every month,” she said.
To sustain the pad bank, the two women came up with an idea - they make Swahili sandals using old tyres and other materials.
“We sell these sandals and the money we get we buy the pads. We also receive some pads from well-wishers,” Jama said.
