2015 Project Title: The Soap Project: Materials and Methods for Making Soap in Kenya
Undergraduate Student: Kayla Sippl
Community Partner: Indigenous People in Action
The Soap Project works to spread the knowledge of soap-making as a conduit to economic and personal empowerment for women and communities. Workshops were facilitated in Kenya with the support of community partners including Indigenous People in Action and Living Positive Kenya. Both organizations are historically involved with teaching women potential income-generating skills. The workshops aimed to encourage the exchange of knowledge with myself assisting groups in soap-making, and the women sharing their knowledge of beadwork. In addition, research was conducted to identify unique
ingredients. Potential markets for the soap were identified with the goal of developing unique packaging and selling the finished soap product. These mutually beneficial relations and the balance between workshops, research, and reflection has allowed The Soap Project to become an economic empowerment tool for the women, as well as a way to improve health and personal hygiene.
2014 Recognition for Global Engaged Scholarship
Tharaka Women’s Welfare Program: Youth Engagement
Who: Allison Sambo, Graduate Student
Tharaka Women’s Welfare Program began with the mission to eradicate Female Genital Mutilation through an Alternative Rite of Passage, and subsequently improve young women’s health, education and economic outcomes. Allison worked with TWWP, the young girls, and community leaders to reimagine the ARP space, thinking about ways to continue the culturally significant practices that signal a transition to womanhood, while incorporating new activities aimed at fostering critical consciousness and civic empowerment through leadership and communication skill trainings and capacity building activities. Allison aims to continue bringing young women to the table as co-leaders and important stakeholders in development initiatives aimed at improving young women’s well being.
2013
Mobile Health Initiative in Rural Kenya: Malaria Prevention Campaign
WHO: Lindsey Bauer and Lisa Peterson
PROJECT: One of the major public health concerns and leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Kenya is malaria. Currently the rapid expansion of resistance to what was once effective anti-malarial drugs has made the battle against this disease a more urgent concern. This project identifies the need for preventative anti-malarial mosquito nets in the communities of Lunga Lunga, Godo, and Perani, located in rural southeast Kenya. Through months of cultural immersion and community-based research, last year’s project was able to identify a target population based on elevated rates of malarial infection post-menopausal women.
Due to poverty, lack of power, gendered division of labor, and the inaccessibility of nets, women over the age of forty became the focus of last year’s and this year’s Wisconsin Idea Undergraduate Fellowship Projects. By educating postmenopausal women, the keepers of culture, and the community, these projects have extended into all realms of rural Kenyan society. This year’s continuation has been providing local women with patterns and materials to sew and treat their own nets while emphasizing the importance of such protection.
Principle to this campaign is the increase in local knowledge with regards to mosquito nets and the correct manner and technique in which to construct and suspend them. By providing raw materials rather than assembled nets, we have increased the output of this project, promoted sustainability, and involved the women in these communities to take action for their health and the wellbeing of their families. In addition, these initiatives have improved the magnitude and quality of health education for women, thus addressing gender inequalities in access to education and health care. This has been accomplished through the Mobile Health Initiative which provides community wide sessions on disease prevention and treatment.
Through a central goal of creating self-sustainability, a local nurse was contracted and has monitored the usage of anti-malarial mosquito nets and the rates of malarial infection. For this summer’s Malaria Prevention Campaign, we teamed up with the Lunga Lunga tailoring industry to start a sustainable cycle of production and distribution of insecticide-treated nets. By making patterns and the materials available, this campaign is protecting women and children who are not eligible for government-issued nets. Last year, Nurse Josephine Matini, surveyed the community populations to identify the individuals with no access to nets preference has been given to pre and postmenopausal women.
Many of the assembled nets have already been distributed for free to the women who Nurse Josephine designated. A portion of the constructed nets will be sold to other communities with economically-capable individuals. This will yield profit to fund the cycle of production and protection that is imperative to this campaign. These determined and talented Kenyan women have previously demonstrated their ability to generate revenue by utilizing their extremely limited resources to craft profitable products such as bags and jewelry in order to fund their own healthcare.
Funding from the Wisconsin Idea Undergraduate Fellowship jumpstarted the sustainable Malaria Prevention Campaign by providing the initial materials necessary to construct and treat the anti-malarial mosquito nets. This grant was also used to purchase already-made anti-malarial mosquito nets, a sewing machine for the net production, and rapid Malaria tests which are in high demand in the local clinic. The rapid Malaria tests allow the nurse to correctly diagnose and treat cases of malaria to ensure optimal use of the limited treatments. The nurse and women have the knowledge and drive to follow the provided patterns to construct nets in order to continue protecting their communities from Malaria.