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The purpose of the Women's Education for Empowerment and Child Survival
(WEECS) project is to increase functional literacy for 750 illiterate mothers and improve the quality of life of 3,700 children in Kakamega and Butere districts, Western Kenya by using the Regenerated Freire's Literacy through Community Empowering Techniques (REFLECT) approach to literacy.
WEECS will address the critical issues relating to the negative impact of poverty on women, exhibited through high rates of malnutrition, high rates of child and infant mortality, and low levels of literacy through:
- establishing REFLECT literacy programme in the project area to promote female literacy;
- increasing post-literacy activities for 750 women to enhance functional literacy in nutrition, child health and enterprise development activities;
- providing supplementary foods to 2,500 severely underweight children.
Some of the project outcomes will include: increased levels of literacy amongst women from 52% in 2006 to 62% in 2008; reduced rates of malnutrition amongst children under five from 24% to 14% by 2008; reduced infant mortality rate from 187/1000 to 80/1000 in 2008; and increased rates of representation of women in community decision making structures (e.g. school and hospital boards) by 15%.
ACTIVITIES
- Support 30 REFLECT literacy centres and 4 community level committees to manage the literacy activities;
- Recruit and train 60 Community Resource Facilitators (CRFs) who will be responsible for leading literacy training activities with literacy groups and carry out the activities, which develop the literacy, numeracy and functional skills of those women involved in the project;
- Support women in 30 REFLECT circles (groups) to pursue their income generation, micro-credit and savings mobilisation activities to increase their economic and social empowerment;
- Refurbish and equip 4 Community Resource Centres (CRC) with desks, chairs, bookshelves, computers, printers and tables for women to access information on literacy, nutrition education, enterprise development, family planning;
- Develop and produce post literacy materials to enhance literacy activities for 750 women, and mobilise resources to an endowment fund for self-sufficiency.
TARGET GROUP & NEEDS
The Kenya 1999 Population Census Report found that 4.2 million adults were illiterate and that 61% of this disadvantaged group were women. In the project area, the female literacy rate stands at 52%, coupled with poor access to resources, this disadvantage has resulted in negative consequences such as high malnutrition and infant mortality rates amongst vulnerable children. Infant and child mortality rates of 184/1000 are very high, especially when set against the national average of 120/1000. Malnutrition is estimated to affect 24% of the children in the project area.
The primary stakeholders will be the 750 women and 3,700 children living in the communities involved in the project; women who are mothers and are illiterate; and malnourished children. Women are responsible for their families' food, health and schooling, yet they have neither power nor control over resources. Lack of literacy skills serve to reinforce their relatively low position in society.
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