Wendo Aszed's mission: empowering girls and breaking the poverty cycle in Kenya

In the isolated farming villages of northwestern Kenya, more than half of all girls do not go to school. Poverty is the main reason, but traditional gender roles also stand in their way. Many girls in the region undergo female genital mutilation as a result of the deep-rooted belief that you are only a real woman once you have had‘the cut’. But once cut, the majority of girls never finish school. They marry young and have lots of children because they are not allowed to use contraception without their husband’s consent.

Illiterate

Kenyan Wendo Aszed is convinced that to break the poverty spiral, it is indispensable to send girls to school and provide them with education – including on family planning. She knows what she is talking about, because Aszed herself was a village girl and almost illiterate until she was eleven. Thanks to the help of her stepfather – a doctor – she was able to embark on an impressive educational catch-up race. She moved to Nairobi and learned English from him. ‘I’ve been very lucky,’ says Aszed, but she’s also incredibly smart. She went to boarding school, graduated from university, and became a bank executive.

She moved with her family of five children to the western Kenyan countryside years ago, for her husband’s work. There, she saw the fate of so many vulnerable girls and young women, with whom she could so easily identify. It motivated her to found Dandelion Africa in 2010, empowering young women in all possible areas. It has a long list of activities: Dandelion Africa provides contraceptives at fifty locations in remote areas and it also provides sanitary towels at 56 village schools. The charismatic Aszed says: ‘Many girls stay at home out of shame when they are on their period because they don’t have sanitary towels. They simply miss three or four days of school a month.’ The NGO has built three medical centres in the region where women can give birth safely. Employees provide sex education in schools and coach women to save and to start their own farms.

Dandelion Africa also strives to increase political awareness among entire village communities in the region. The population is trained to hold politicians to account when it comes to things like the construction of water pipes or roads. We tell them: ‘Follow the money. Pay close attention to whether the promised funds are spent on improvements in the countryside. And post on social media if things aren’t going right.’

Key Role

Aszed is able to innovate quickly, thanks to the confidence that his sponsors – SAS-P included – have in her. ‘As a result of the climate crisis, our area was hit by flooding,’ she says. ‘It affected more than two thousand people and their farms. We have now moved over to smart agriculture and are using this technology in our projects to be better prepared for future disasters.’

In 2014, Dandelion took on a new challenge in Africa by deliberately involving boys in their programmes. ‘Schoolboys came to us themselves,’ says Aszed. They saw that Dandelion Africa only focused on girls, while as boys, they wanted sex education too, as well as information about female genital mutilation (FGM). This was an eye-opener for Aszed. ‘After all, they get girls pregnant and also benefit from family planning.’ There are many obstacles in breaking down the patriarchy, and boys can play a key role. ‘We begin by informing schoolboys about menstrual hygiene and the dangers of female genital mutilation,’ she says. ‘And the boys pass this information on to the girls.’ One of her own sons was among the first batch of schoolboys. ‘I raised my boys to be feminists,’ says Aszed. ‘I put all my lessons into practice according to my adage of leading by example.’