Phionah Musumba, Founder & Executive Director Malkia Foundation

Phionah, could you please tell us about your work in promoting women empowerment and gender equality?

I run Malkia Foundation, a national non-governmental organization in rural Western in Kenya. We empower girls with educational opportunities, and women by providing them opportunities for skill-building for enterprise development towards gainful and or self-employment for sustainability.

At the moment though, we are involved in the mitigation of COVID-19 through mass production and free distribution in face masks and handwashing soap to our community. As of now, we have distributed 54,000 masks and 7,000 bottles of handwashing soap. During normal times, we run different programs, namely-

i) Menstrual Hygiene and Management 

We provide approximately 4,000 girls every year with menstrual hygiene supplies to keep them in school.

ii) Microfinance 

We provide women on groups of 15 with tiny loans that impact their lives profoundly by enabling them to achieve and access their families’ basic needs. Sometimes their goal is usually to be able to put food on their table.

iii) School Outreach 

We impart life-skills, entrepreneurship, and self-reliant skills to school going girls to help them understand the importance of being job-ready or self employable after school.

iv) Teenage Mothers Empowerment

We work with girls who find themselves thrown in the motherhood roles early in life. We provide them with 7 weeks of financial literacy skills, lifestyles, entrepreneurship, and general knowledge to be able to fend for themselves and their babies. At the end of the training,  we provide them with small amount of loans with which they start small cottage businesses for their sustainability. We also provide them with family planning information. 

v) School Uniforms Manufacturing 

With a total of 11 tailors, we manufacture school uniforms for the schools in Vihiga County at discounted prices to enable parents to afford the school fees for their children.