Our Programs

Literacy for Women in Africa

BSK has an adult literacy program dubbed literacy for women in Africa. This program mainly targets a group of women of child-bearing age (15 years and above) who have not had the opportunity to learn to read and write.

BSK has an adult literacy program dubbed literacy for women in Africa. This program mainly targets a group of women of child-bearing age (15 years and above) who have not had the opportunity to learn to read and write.
Other persons targeted by the programme include men, young girls, and elderly women. This could also include women who have already had the opportunity to learn to read ‘second chance.’

Turkana County has low literacy levels of 20% considering that it has a population of 926,976 speakers of the language. Non-literates account for 741,580.

The Literacy for Women in Africa programme is currently being implemented in the County with 20 active adult literacy classes spread across Loima, Turkana Central, Turkana North, and Turkana South sub-counties. The program has grown tremendously since 2018 when it began with 10 pilot classes. So far, 1920 learners have been trained with 65% of them being women.

The reason why the program majorly focuses on women is that in the marginalized communities women or girls are denied a chance to go to school, as priority is given to men. Women are seen as people who carry out house chores, bear children, go through practices e.g. female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriages thus denying them a chance to access education or any form of schooling.

The uniqueness of this program is that it is a non-formal mother tongue-based education meant to impact adult learners with basic reading and writing skills. The main goal of the program is to enable the marginalized communities to read the Word of God in their heart language and be transformed by it.

BSK partners with the Church to implement this programme. The Churches provide venues that are used as classes, they identify passionate people who are trained as teachers, and they assist in monitoring. The Directorate of Adult and Continuing Education office has also come in handy in helping learners to transition to formal schooling to learn other subjects.

other Programs & projects

Open the Book & Programme For Pastoral Instruction PPI

Braille Bible Distribution to the VIP’s Programme

Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH)

Mwimbi Bible Translation

Young Samaritans Programme

Literacy for Women in Africa

Bibles Eagles Club

African Biblical Leadership Initiative (abli)

Marginalized Children

 

Gikuyu Study Bible Project

Banyala Bible Translation Project

Teso Bible translation project

 

Raising funds to support women in Pokot with literacy skills

Written by BSkenya

September 5, 2018

A golfer doing what he enjoys in support of the BSK literacy project

BSK held an exciting golf tournament event on August 31st 2018 at the Royal Nairobi Golf Club to raise funds for the women literacy project in Pokot.

The event was attended by 55 golfers from various golf clubs who came to play as well as support the noble course of helping marginalized communities with low literacy levels. The golfers were very excited to contribute towards this noble course of helping a woman in Pokot get basic education and training so that their lives will be transformed holistically.

This was the 3rd annual golf tournament to be held by the Society. The main sponsor of the event was Sanlam.

The literacy initiative dubbed Literacy for Women in Africa is aimed at empowering women and girls in Pokot who have not had a chance to get basic literacy skills and knowledge hence improve their way of life and ultimately be able to read the Bible.

BSK decided to respond to a need identified and documented in the Kenya National Adult Literacy Survey, 2006 Report which established that an average of 38.5 % (7.8 million) of the Kenyan adult population are illiterate, while the age cohort 15 to 19 years recorded a literacy rate of 69.1 % with West Pokot County ranking low in Literacy levels.

Previously, the project has successfully ran in Turkana, Narok and Kajiado counties. In Turkana County, we have 10 pilot classes consisting of more than 250 learners who are expected to graduate in November 2018. We wish to extend the literacy work in Pokot so as to have an empowered community.

Women in marginalized communities are most vulnerable debilitated by negative cultural practices like early marriages, female genital mutilation, inability to make decisions even in their personal lives and early teenage pregnancies rendering basic opportunities like education inaccessible. It is believed that empowering a woman reduces infant mortality and deaths among children under five years by about 10%.

Off to the field we go…

By extension, this project encourages men to learn and acquire basic knowledge which is projected to deliver more stable and healthier families.

The Board Chairperson Prof. Mumo Kisau thanked the sponsor Sanlam and golfers for their support towards the noble cause and noted that the funds will go towards assisting the Pokot community learn literacy skills which will translate to transformed lives.

After a long day of play, the golfers were treated to a sumptuous dinner by BSK and the winners were awarded in different categories.

 

 

 

 

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