In brief

The SOL Foundation continues to assist Footsteps, a Kenyan registered community-based organisation, to empower girls living in the urban slums of Nairobi using football and volleyball.

Footsteps’ work promotes and encourages entrepreneurial awareness among young girls and young women with the aim of enabling them to be responsible, enterprising individuals who contribute to the economic development of their community.

The intervention model focuses on girls and women leadership development, education provision aimed at retaining girls in schools, using sports on the element of play and learn for advocating for girls’ rights, providing vocational trainings through non-formal education initiatives and creation of innovative safe spaces for girls and young women involvement in entrepreneurial activities for financial independency.

Problem to be tackled

Kenya remains the third-highest country worldwide with teenage pregnancies where one in every five adolescent women aged 15 to 19 are already mothers or pregnant with their first child. Additionally, in the year 2021, on average, 98 new HIV infections were recorded every week among adolescents of age ten to 19 years.

In the communities where Footsteps works, girls and women living in the urban slums of Nairobi are faced with social and economic instability and vulnerability, experiencing some of the lowest school enrolment rates in Kenya, these girls are exposed to violence and insecurity in their everyday lives, and they are at an increased risk for early pregnancy and HIV/AIDS.

Local partner

Footsteps’ programme will continue to give girls and young women platforms where they can amplify their voices on social issues and rights, leading in their homes, communities and schools. Additionally, the project engages parents and community members through using sports to initiate discussions related to girls and the role of the community in protecting them. The activities are built around the body of a girl and young woman and her integrated security. Integrated security covers the five elements: physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, and mental.

Footsteps is a community-based organisation in Nairobi, Kenya: its mission is to identify and invest in girls and young women in the marginalised communities by unleashing their leadership potential to transform lives and accelerate prosperity within their communities.