Background and Context Girls and young women in our communities continue to be marginalized due to poverty. In some circumstances, girls have been given off to marriages without their consent, but as bait for their families to be unchained from poverty. They have a voice but they have no spaces for sharing their views. Our environment is not allowing girls to dream, the girls feel terribly insecure emotionally, physically, spiritually and psychologically. Girls and young women are entering into unhealthy relationships due to poverty with the aim of getting gifts and basic needs such as foods and clothing. These relationships usually lead to abuses with some girls being victims of rape and other dropping out of school because of early pregnancies. The unsafe environment at home and in their community creates a visual image of life that is coloured with the negative vices which every girl and young woman adopts to it for survival. This unhealthy lifestyle affects them socially and psychologically leading to girl’s physical and mental instability robing them the power to dream and realize their unique potentials even in daring situations of their lives. In Kenya almost half new HIV infections is among adolescents and young people. A new study conducted by the National Aids Control Council shows that the prevalence rate has increased from 29% in 2014 to 46% in 2016. (In Kenya 45% of the general population in Kenya are young people below the age of 15 while 19% of the general population is young people between the ages of 15 to 24 years). Young people are mostly energized and creative at this stage of life and mostly when their minds are polluted and they are not well informed their energy is channeled to activities and things i.e. drug abuse, unhealthy sexual relationship that makes them vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection. The girls we work with in the marginalized communities are mostly exposed to unhealthy relationships due to unavoidable circumstances with most of them exposed to violence in their families and this makes them develop behavioral problems immediately or later in life. Building adolescent healthy minds and body projects seeks to continue using boxing to impact more girls to be sporty, secure, and healthy and also be lifted as a leaders and solution builders in schools and their communities. Through supporting our programs, we will be working with girls and young women to break the silence on sexual abuse, promoting economic justice and ensuring that there is a critical mass of people supporting girls and young women’s freedom and social justice. In addition the girls and young women will be engaged actively in sports, using boxing to promote sexual reproductive health and rights. Project objectives 1.To enable girls and young women understand the power they have and how they can use it to defend themselves against violence , enhance their leadership and organising skills both at home , school and community. 2.To create safe spaces for girls to understand and appreciate individual differences for self- discovery and for the inner light to shine. 3.To continue building vertical and horizontal linkages across families, communities and schools that strengthen girls security and protection against violence. We will use boxing, an important and innovative tool, among others benefits, in reaching objectives of girls’ rights, leadership and social change. Boxing is not necessarily the first sport that comes to mind when thinking about girls’ rights through using sport. Boxing is a sport that makes one fit and fast, it can create positive change for girls growing up in the hard urban and the rural environment of Kenya and other African countries.
Building adolescent girls healthy mind and body through boxing
