Florence Owino, Future Within CBO, Kibera, Kenya
A Young Mother Looks to Leverage her College Degree for Employment While Addressing "Period Poverty" Among Girls and Young Women in the Kibera Slums
Meet Florence Owino, 25-year old mother and wife of Calvin Juma featured on Day 32 and a member of Future Within, a Community-Based Organization serving youth, teen mothers, and other vulnerable populations in the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya.
Florence grew up in the Kibera slums in Nairobi, Kenya and still lives there today with Calvin and their daughter Larissa. I’ve had Florence on my list to feature ever since I interviewed her husband Calvin, but we found it challenging to connect given the ever-pressing duties of motherhood, childcare, and other family responsibilities. This is what made me want even more to make sure I had space for her in this 61-day project.
Motherhood & ChangeMaking
Mothers are already ChangeMakers in my book. They are raising, shaping and impacting the next generation of leaders often with insufficient support and recognition. But then there are the mothers who go above and beyond and impact their communities. Some of these mothers have been featured here. Some, like
(Day 27) and (Day 53) have infants with few or no childcare opportunities while others like (Day 37), Dee J Essy (Day 11) and (Day 26) have school-aged children with hefty school fee responsibilities.Each of them has a story to tell about balancing the responsibilities of caregiving, trying to earn a living, and effecting some change in the community. I’m amazed that any of them are able to able to find the wherewithal to even give back to their communities given the responsibilities they face as well as the societal and cultural norms that are not supportive of gender equity. This is why not everyone rises above the fray to be a community ChangeMaker. It requires sacrifice and persistence to go above and beyond to do something in the world, however small or limited, that tangibly benefits others or the environment. These women do it. Back to Florence!
She Comes From A Humble Background
Florence started our interview with the statement “I am from a humble background.” Born and raised in the Kibera slums, Florence has the lived experience to know that context. I didn’t. Having already interviewed Calvin, already had the benefit of his “insider’s perspective” (click the link to read the section of his interview on Kibera).
It’s worth giving a brief backdrop. An estimated 200,000 people live in Kibera (for years, 1 million or more residents has been repeated but recent studies have reduced that estimation downward significantly). While Kibera may not actually be the largest slum in Africa, it is still a place replete with challenges and difficulties: high unemployment (some put it at 50% although there is significant informal day laboring), lack of public infrastructure, insufficient sanitation and access to clean water, inconsistent access to electricity, regular fires, crime, cartels, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, and the list goes on.
With that rough sketch for context, knowing the kinds of challenges Florence and her family were running up against daily, let’s return to her story:
We were a family of 6 members. I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters. I was brought up by a single parent, that is my mother. My dad died in 2006 when I was 7 years old and left me behind with my youngest sister at the age of 2 months.
Florence’s family struggled with life after her father’s death. The children went to bed hungry countless times because her mother didn’t earn enough as a casual labourer. Florence and her siblings would attend school but sometimes had to stay home due to lack of school fees. This caused her two brothers to drop out of school.
Florence struggled to stay in school but managed to graduate with the assistance of international friends who helped her pay her school fees. In 2019, she was able to enter college to pursue a diploma in Social Work and Community Development. Her schooling was interrupted in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic.
During COVID, her international friends dropped their support.
I was left hanging and nowhere to turn to.
In 2021, she married Calvin and gave birth to their daughter Larissa. Her dream was to continue with her studies at college so that she could give back to her community.
Florence Graduates From College, But Employment is Scarce
I was praying to God to help me go back to school. Luckily, God sent me someone who helped me pursue my course. That person was Toni Starr who supported me to go back to college. I always thank God for this angel He sent in my life.
I was so happy for the milestone I had achieved in life, graduating from college.
Florence graduated December 2023 with a diploma in Social Work and Community Development and began using her skills immediately - but not as an employee or an entrepreneur. With a young child at home to care for, no childcare opportunities, and unemployment high, it was difficult for Florence to find a job. Instead, she sought out volunteer opportunities.
This - volunteering when employment is unavailable - is a recurring theme with many of the ChangeMakers I’ve interviewed who live in areas facing extreme hardship and poverty. There are so few opportunities for income generation that volunteering can be a way to gain experience and possibly open up doors for employment in the future.
After college, I was a volunteer in a community based organization by the name of Kibera Mpira Mtaani (Kimmta). This is an organization dealing with education, football (soccer) and empowerment.
Florence also spent time volunteering at a library, organizing the books.
I used to go there at 6:00 pm in the evening and come back home at 9:00 pm. Because of the baby, I really struggled and made sure that I went to school during the day, came back home and went to the library to offer my services.
Florence has also volunteered with Tumikia Mtoto-AVSI, a local partner of World Vision Kenya. The project dealt with children affected and infected with HIV/ AIDS.
Now, Florence helps primarily with Future Within Community Based Organization (see Calvin Juma article Day 32). Her role is to empower young girls on various topics like period poverty, adolescence, and self esteem. But, like with other Kibera-based CBOs (such as Agape Hope for Kibera featured on Day 52) and so many other groups I have featured here, Florence’s ability to help is dependent upon external donations of support.
Unfortunately, we do not hold sessions each and every month on menstrual hygiene due to lack of a specific donor to help in funding the purchase of sanitary towels. We do it once in a while.
I asked her to identify the most pressing problem in her community. She identified “period poverty” (the inability for girls and women to afford menstrual pads) as the persistent problem. The statistic commonly cited for Kenya is that 65% of girls and women go without menstrual pads due to the cost and availability.
I would like to get support to help the girls with sanitary towels. Some of them go a long time missing school due to lack of sanitary pads.
As featured in other stories during this 61-day project, it seems that everywhere in Kenya this is a pressing and persistent issue. (See in particular the interview with Anne Okello of
on Day 47).New taxes on a variety of essentials including diapers and sanitary pads had been proposed as part of the President of Kenya’s recent Finance Bill - the bill which for over a month now has been protested vociferously by many across the country but most significantly in Nairobi; which protests have been and continue to be met with brutal State violence and repression.
An article by the Fuller Project in late June on the topic entitled “East Africa’s Finance Bills Deal Heavy Blow to Women’s Wallets”, said that even though the taxes in the Finance Bill (and the Finance Bill itself) were withdrawn, the cost of imported sanitary pads are still too high for most to afford and the locally-produced supply of disposable menstrual pads is limited.
As mentioned above, Anne Okello of
whom I interviewed on Day 47 also advocates for girls’ menstrual hygiene and sanitary pads in Western Kenya, Nyanza region. During my interview with Anne, I asked about whether reusable pads (sewn from cloth) were being widely adopted by young women as an alternative to disposable. She indicated that this new generation of young women are particularly reticent to use reusable sanitary pads and adoption of the pads is low particularly in communities where some or most of the girls are wearing disposable pads. Disposable pads are preferred and the idea of using reusable pads are considered by many young girls, she says, to be a throwback to “our grandmother’s time.”There are plenty of experts who could opine on the challenges and opportunities here (I invite you too!). I’m certainly not one of them. However, I felt it might be helpful to at least provide some additional perspective on the topic of “period poverty” as I have come to understand it. This subject was also discussed in the article featuring
of Days For Girls Kakamega on Day 8, Deborah Achieng Nembi on Day 18, and more recently in the interview with MCDawn and Agape Hope for Kibera on Day 52.
What are your thoughts on the issues? Is “period poverty” a pressing issue for young girls and women in your community? Are young girls accepting of reusable pads if there is a part of the population that is using disposable? Did you know that two in five women in the United States report struggling to afford pads?
Whatever our opinions and experiences are - whether we hold them in common or not, it’s clear that the young women Florence knows are going without. And, going without means staying home from school. And, staying home from school often leads to a whole host of other problems, in addition to the obvious one of not getting an education.
Meanwhile, Florence is also staying home, but raising an adorable, not-yet-old-enough-for-school toddler. She is trying to find ways she can make an impact in the lives of the girls in her community in the here and now while also dreaming of the day when she can do both - serve her community and find employment to help support herself and her family.
Who is Florence’s ChangeMaker?
Florence chose Toni Starr as her ChangeMaker. Toni helped Florence return to school and graduate with a college degree in December 2023.
Where in the World is Florence?
Florence is located in the Kibera Slums five kilometers from the center of Nairobi, Kenya.
Let's connect her with Agape Hope for Kibera. That's where we hired Jensikiah to make the reusable pads for 300 girls. I also think we're stronger together if we connect them. Some of the women were asking to get together with other young girls who have been put in negative situations.
Yes; period poverty impacts a lot of women. The uptake of reusable pads is low, because of 1.its inconvenience 2. Many communities lack water eg the refugee settlements and the rural areas. Getting so much water to clean the pads would be a challenge am sure.