n the first week of December, 96 girls from Form 1 to Form 4 gathered at Sajiloini Girls Secondary School for the annual Girls Empowerment Conference. The empowerment conference is geared towards providing a space for mentorship in which the girls receive mentoring on spiritual, academic, career, and well-being. To facilitate a few sessions, Madam Sheila walked the girls through a session on handling negative emotions and navigating peer pressure. Through this session, she helped the girls understand the value of self-awareness regarding our different emotions. Her session also helped the girls build courage against bad peer pressure. She affirmed that they are capable of standing up for themselves against those who would seek to influence them in a way that will be detrimental to their education and future.
On her second day of facilitation, she spoke to the girls about academic excellence and goal setting. Meeting them at their place of concern as students, Madam Sheila’s sessions helped the girls break down their desires for academic achievement into tangible goals. She gave them tools on how to set good goals using multiple methods including the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound) goals method. Having practical sessions such as these helps the girls to build critical skills that will help them currently as students and in other areas of life. The next speaker who facilitated a session with the students was Pastor Sally and she spoke on ‘Biblical Values and Culture’. One of the key points she shared was about the value each of the students carries and the different ways they can make a difference in their communities with the values they hold.
In addition to the stellar sessions, the girls made the most of their time playing outside, making new friends, and relaxing. On the last full day, we had a moment to also celebrate the students graduating from Form 4. Having recently completed their national examinations, the Form 4 class of 2024 is the largest THS cohort to date to have completed secondary school. We commemorated this by recognizing their achievements and presented each one with a small congratulatory gift. Every year that we get to gather with the secondary school students is a joy and watching them progress from one level of education to the next is an opportunity to pour into the lives of the upcoming leaders of women in Kajiado.
