Globally, women and girls continue to be disadvantaged in terms of resource use, access and ownership just because they are women. Through ROA human centred development, we have managed to increase access to basic education for the girl-child and to keep her in school.
Educating girls ensures women have equal access to life’s opportunities, decreases child marriages; decreases infant and maternal mortality and enables women to work as full citizens of the world.
To raise women’s socio-economic status both in the family and the community ROA donated dairy cows through women groups providing each member’s family with milk for both home consumption and sale.
The number of families that have benefited from this project continues to grow.
To enhance the economic activity of women in rural communities, ROA channels and monitors seed funding to women groups for cash crop farming and other businesses they operate. These projects have attracted many otherwise idle and unemployed high school graduates to the program.
Over 50 groups or by extension over 1000 women have benefited from ROA’s seed funding and cash crop farming since the organization’s inception.
Management of menstruation can present substantial challenges to girls in low-income settings. Many girls in primary schools in rural areas skip school when their monthly menstrual cycle is in full swing. They are subjected to embarrassment and fear of teasing related to menstruation. This, together with menstrual pain and lack of effective materials for menstrual hygiene management, leads to school absenteeism, thus impeding their academic performance. Social studies in schools show that poverty and menstruation as the key factors associated with school attendance among girls.