Challenges, fears, and opportunities in Kilifi county, Kenya

The situations of gender difference, disadvantage, and subordination in which girls are placed, especially in environments of material and educational poverty, are closely interconnected with difficult access to basic services in the health, educational, and social spheres. Moreover, individual project trajectories are often entrusted to the repetition of collective and hierarchical models that do not provide for possible innovations. In order to counteract a tendency that has been “normalized” over time, it is necessary to articulate new logic of power, social welfare and educational policies focused on community perspectives in which there is an equal place for girls and women, overcoming gender-based violence. This transition requires the ability to be able to read between the wefts of traditional approaches, beliefs, and community structures in which to contemplate an increase in the participation of women in decision and policy-making at all levels, including access to education and the labour market.