My Experience, by Joy Huldah Moraa

Thank you, again, Amran Hussein of Manhattan, New York for supporting Lift the Lid as we work to improve the education of underprivileged children. Lift the Lid helps selected schools to become self-sufficient and encourages the students to write. To show her appreciation, Joy Moraa of Lenana Girls High School in Kitale, Kenya would like to share her essay “My Experience,” about the violence she and her family suffered post-elections in 2007-2008. She writes, “I couldn’t believe that our neighbors would attack us.”

Amran, your donation will go toward a special fund we are calling The Miracle Project. Our goal is to supply 25 students from Lenana Girls High School with reusable sanitary towels or The Moon Cup®. We need to raise just $200 more, and we’ll be able to keep these girls healthy, functional, and comfortable throughout high school and university and into the workforce.

According to The Consumers Federation of Kenya, 85% of women and girls in rural Kenya do not use sanitary napkins. They resort to rags, skins, a mixture of mud and leaves for protection, or just staying home. School drop out rates spike for teenage girls in Kenya. At best, they miss a week of school each month.

We can make a difference at Lenana Girls High School. The majority of the girls at Lenana come from severely underprivileged backgrounds, where sanitary napkins are a luxury they cannot afford. While the school makes reproductive health a part of the curriculum, at this time they are unable to supply the girls with sanitary napkins each month.

Lift the Lid, through The Miracle Project, is looking into different products, both bio-degradable and reusable, in order to keep the girls at Lenana healthy and going to class. Thank you, Amran, for helping us to make a dent in this widespread problem in rural Kenya.

Click on the images below to read Joy’s essay about how she and her family were affected by the  post-elections violence, and how losing everything but what her father could carry as they ran has made her appreciate life so much more: