Ideo.org, PSK and the Maverick NEXT team came together to design adaptive tools and resources to integrate economic empowerment and sexual reproductive health education for young women in Kilifi County, Kenya. Our goal was to take a core sexual reproductive health program (Binti Shupavu) and introduce components that may help young women feel more more empowered to make decisions about not just their bodies, but their futures, their finances and possible career paths.
Created in partnership with PSI Kenya and MaverickNext, Binti Biashara is a program that builds off of existing economic empowerment (EE) prototypes that were created in a previous sprint (see Kishua Academy). Working in a team of two, Alex and I had five weeks to extract key inspiration from our Tanzania and Nigerian prototypes to overlay onto Binti Shupavu - a newly designed sexual reproductive health (SRH) prototype in Kenya. Our mission was to create more pathways for girls to access sexual health information by demonstrating how child spacing is directly tied to an increase in savings and financial prosperity.
At the end of the five weeks, we expanded the original prototype design for Binti Shupavu (“determined” girl in kiswahili), to also include new programming for Binti Biashara (“business girl”). Binti Shupavu created space for communities and the girls to share stories around SRH, access family planning information, and also showcase their businesses in a community setting.
We realized that to empower adolescent girls, we needed to create an enabling environment and help the community identify the link between birth spacing and financial prosperity. The lives of girls are heavily defined by their community, especially their “mwenyes” or influencers, who can be their boyfriend, husband, mother-in-law, or community leaders. Young girls were often hesitant to ask about contraceptives due to social stigma, as well as many inaccurate rumours.
Our team designed activities where “mwenyes” and girls could learn facts around contraception and birth spacing independently. Worksheets and a “smart start” guide helped them see how much raising a child would cost, and how much they could save financially by birth spacing and planning strategically. Afterwards, mwenyes and girls can make more informed decisions, and aspire together through a joint goal-setting activity.
Due to poverty and high school dropout rates, many girls sell low-value commodities that do not generate enough income for them to sustain themselves. We realized that girls needed to see the potential in themselves to become successful, independent women; and have role models who they can aspire to become. When they realize their ability to create change, they are inspired to seek the resources and skills necessary to secure the future for themselves and their family.
We designed the Binti Biashara program to inspire girls to dream big, and offer practical business skills inspired by previous Nigeria and Tanzania prototypes. The courses empower girls to critically analyze local and regional markets, and identify opportunities that match their strengths, skill sets, and passions. Additionally, they are also linked to mentors within the community for hands-on apprenticeship opportunities, and vocational training programs in the region.
Internally, one of our biggest takeaways from this project was learning to make space for ourselves (instead of having hours of back-to-back zoom calls). Alex and I discovered that when we intentionally blocked moments of rest and recreation for ourselves, we also allowed our creativity to flow in the hours of uninterrupted, heads down time.
During these moments, I had time to design the entire Binti Biashara program without feeling overwhelmed. Some of our builds in the past felt overly complicated and difficult to follow. In this case, Binti Biashara was delivered as a simple, efficient prototype that also clearly addressed the key issues in the region. As a bonus, I also had plenty of fun creating custom illustrations that complemented Zack’s original designs for Binti Shupavu.
