An Example Exodus

Research assistant Benson Ojwang and guide Samson Ochieng lead the way to an interviewee's home just outside of Muhuru Bay

Published July 28, 2015, last updated on October 17, 2017 under Voices of DGHI

By Zack Fowler

When you find yourself grasping for hope in a seemingly hopeless situation, there is one friendly phrase that often finds its way to one’s lips:

“I know someone who …”

We find comfort in being able to reference a success story—a counter-example to the obstacle in our way. If a role-model of your choosing can do it, then so can you.

This thought often crossed my mind as I sat in dozens of homes with powerful young women who found their identity suddenly changed from “student” to “dropout.” As interviews came to a close, I felt compelled to give some kind of reassurance: you’re smart, you’re so driven, and the fact that you have been studying every day while raising a baby in case you get to go back to school is amazing. But repeatedly, I found myself unable to use that go-to phrase: “I know someone who …”.

In Muhuru Bay, there are dozens of barriers between a young woman and a secondary school diplomapoverty, early pregnancy, early marriage, and a reduced valuing of girls’ education being just a few. This means that every single success story that Muhuru produces is crucial to the perception of what young women can accomplish.

Over the past two years, the Women’s Institute of Secondary Education and Research (WISER) has done amazing work and graduated two classes of all-female students with 0% attrition. These graduates are, without a doubt, going to be leaders in the community in which they grew up.

However, that 0% attrition doesn’t spread to all schools in Muhuru. And once a girl drops out of a secondary school, for whatever reason, the odds that she returns can be insurmountable.

So, the question becomes: once a girl drops out of secondary school, can she go back and make it? Or, for those that are living that reality; can I go back and make it?

This is where I wanted the phrase “I know someone who …”.

We were able to personally contact 71 girls who had dropped out of a Muhuru Bay secondary school over the past five years. Of those 71, 36 had re-enrolled and were currently in school. But, of that 36, 29 were in school outside of Muhuru, some as far away as Nairobi. Their reasons for leaving included everything from lack of food in school to escaping men they perceived as threatening.

That means that means that more than 80% of girls that are examples of success after having dropped out of school had left the community. More than 80% of girls that had endured the all-too familiar hardship of poverty, early pregnancy, and illness in Muhuru were not around to share their success with others.

As one secondary school teacher remarked, “It’s so hard for (female students) to find examples. You can’t point and say, 'Look! She did it. She went back. You can do what she did.'”

I think it’s important to keep in mind that one of the best reasons to use girls’ education as a health intervention is that female graduates reinvest up to 90% of their income back into their communities, whereas male graduates reinvest around 30%. So, it’s likely that a lot of these girls who have left Muhuru will return; well-educated and willing to help. But, it’s the lack of former dropout visibility in the meantime that can cause problems with perceptions of success among current dropouts.

Not to mention, that perception puts more than education on the line. Of the girls we’ve interviewed, a vast majority reported early pregnancy as their cause for dropout, and a number of those who have had a child also referenced birthing complications. So while it may seem over-exaggerated, it’s not impossible to tie whether or not a girl thinks she can go back to school to whether or not a girl might experience a maternal health complication.

I once had a mentor who suggested that experiences rarely lead us to answers, they only lead us to better questions. So, after taking all of this in, these questions remain:

How do we connect girls to corresponding success stories that have moved away?

How do we help girls that have finished school re-connect with their home community?

How do we continue to frame self-perception and access to education as issues with implications for maternal health?

And perhaps the final, most important, question: How do we allow more girls to say “I know someone who …”?

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