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Kenya Connect keeps girls in school

Kenya Connect distributes sanitary products to female students in Kenya, where the supplies are scarce --preventing some girls from attending school. Students from Garrison Forest school held a drive for supplies to help out. Photo: provided by Kenya Connect
Kenya Connect distributes sanitary products to female students in Kenya, where the supplies are scarce --preventing some girls from attending school. Students from Garrison Forest school held a drive for supplies to help out. Photo: provided by Kenya Connect

The nonprofit ‘Kenya Connect’ mobilizes volunteers in Maryland and people in Kenya to raise the learning level and health of poor pupils whose schools were pummeled by the pandemic.

Intern Rael Mutunge, in Kenya talks about the challenge that entices students to boost their reading power. Catherine Streator, a sophomore at Garrison Forest School, tells how getting sanitary pads to girls at puberty can keep them in school and deter pregnancy. And Sharon Runge, director in the U.S., describes her dream for Kenya Connect:

“Our goal is to see our community being lifted out of poverty through the power of education that more of our students go on to secondary school and university, and become a part of the growing economy in Kenya.

Links: Kenya Connect Mothers Day project, Kenya Connect.

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'