The training was held at Word Of Life in Ukunda. Its involves Kwale young journalists, Lukore primary teachers, Lukore pupils and Waa high school students. The training is intending to equip the pupils with media skills so as to participate in advocacy campaign against child right violence. The above picture shows the pupils filmed in a play to portray the violation of child rights in our local community  as part of the learning exercise. All the casts of the play are the pupils taking different roles in the drama to make sure the message is delivered at their level best.

During the mapping process, Kwale young journalists realized that, Dzombo location has 27 schools both primary, 2 CBO, (community based organization) and 5 health facilities. Among the 27 schools, 22 schools are public and 5 schools are private. Among the 22 schools, 4 schools are secondary.

The facilities both schools and hospital are not equally distributed as they are widely apart. In some schools there are higher rates of drop outs reasons early pregnancies, ignorance, peer pressure, ghosts and child labour. For instance Vitsangaraweni primary school which had 52 drop outs in 2011. Again the number of student is very high compared to the teachers.

Some of the health facilities are not provided with relevant medicines on main diseases affecting that particular area.

The process also encountered some challenges. For instances some of the interviewees were not willing to out the right information on number of pregnancies pupils in schools and cases of abortion in hospitals. And also some were not cooperative. The poor road network is a major challenge to access the interior areas especially in bad weather.

The group expectations are to link the global community with the currents events happening in our local area in advocating child rights through the web

• Lack or little access to education
• Heavy work load
• Child marriage and pregnancies
• Discrimination
• Child defilement
• Child labour e.t.c

At home culturally, the girl child is only to be seen and not to be heard. This has  resulted into parents giving more attention to the boy child rather than girl child. A parent is much comfortable to take the son to school and leave the daughter at home.They believe that girls have tendency not to perform well in school and taking them to school is a mere waste of resources. Even at home, due to gender imbalances, the child is allocated with too much work the belief that she is being prepared for marriage life. This denies the girl child time to study leading to poor performance. The girl child is socialised by a woman in a society that has believed that the primary role of a woman is to be married   and therefore, it is not surprising to find that girls are married off as young as twelve years. The imbalance in gender roles also contribute to less time for the girls to socialize or participate in recreational activities at home in particular and also they cannot compete for the spaces allocated in schools, and in the communities with the boys considering the culture is bent towards the boys more.

Here’s the trailer:

Shooting scene 1 of child labour video

Yesterday, the Kwale Young Journalists went to Mangawani to shoot a video on child labour. The team of 13, worked together with Jeff Mohammed of Mathare in Motion to film 7 scenes. It was a long but successful day!