As you know, I traveled to Kenya last month alongside Girl Rising’s board president and staff to visit all our local program partners. One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to our local program partner Sunflower Trust in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi. Sunflower primarily serves girls who are in the bottom half of their class at the local community schools - providing critical academic support and using the Girl Rising curriculum to help develop confidence and build voice and agency for middle school girls.

 

Thanks to Alex and then Karen connecting Girl Rising with Utiva and HP providing additional funding, we were able to customize a software development course for more than 100 girls at Sunflower Trust. I can't tell you how inspiring it was to walk into a classroom crowded with 6-8th grade girls who were so proud to show us their newly learned coding skills. 

 

These girls have now developed interest in STEM related careers like being web developers. It’s a powerful testament to HP’s digital equity work. I wish every HP employee could have been there with me to witness this transformation.

 

In the words of Sunflower Trust founder, Rukia Sebit:

​

“Sunflower appreciates the partnership with Girl Rising and the addition of technology to the Gender Equality Program. More girls are now inspired to take up STEM related subjects. With tech skills, they will have easy to access information, accelerate learning and opportunities to practice what they learnt. This will enable them to deepen their understanding of different concepts of STEM.”

 

We are so grateful to HP! Thank you for your continued generosity and incredible support. Please see few photos and videos below from Sunflower trust so you can see the training in action!