June 13th, 2013 | Comments (0)
Huru was honored to have its work in Kenya featured on The Doctors on CBS,
along with our friends at Cranktown. Watch the clip here: Huru on The Doctors
May 30th, 2013 | Comments (0)
June 1-7, 2013: In celebration of our 5th anniversary, the first 1,000 Huru Kit donations made during the week of International Children’s Day will be generously matched by Micato Safaris!
What is a Huru Kit?
In a drawstring bag that doubles as a backpack, girls in Africa receive:
Huru Kits are environmentally friendly and locally produced in the Mukuru Slum of Nairobi, Kenya. One Huru Kit costs only $25 – a small price to pay for the lives saved and the cycles of poverty and ignorance broken.
Since its founding in 2008, Huru International has impacted over 300,000 lives:
Huru means “freedom” in Swahili. Through the generous support of our corporate sponsors and individual donors like you, we have been able to give African girls the ultimate freedom by helping them to stay in school. According to UNICEF and the Global Campaign for Education, keeping girls in school is the best way to protect them from chronic poverty and HIV/AIDS.
To donate a Huru Kit to a girl in Africa or to make a general donation, please visit http://www.huruinternational.org/how-to-help
November 13th, 2012 | Comments (0)
“I opted to stay at home during my menses since I couldn’t share with anyone my plight,” said Belfine, a bright thirteen year old girl living with the hardships of becoming a woman in Mukuru Kwa Njenga, Kenya. For Belfine, and countless girls in Kenya, a normal, healthy development of the female body becomes a genuine struggle, creating embarrassment and limiting educational access and normal activity.
Belfine’s father washes cars for a living and her mother stays at home with the children. Because of the strain on her parents to provide for her and her four siblings, she couldn’t ask them to buy her pads, knowing that food is the priority. To cope, she used old cloths. They soaked through quickly and she felt the only solution was to miss school.
It is a travesty that a girl is forced to stay home, unable to get around because of this deep fear of embarrassment. Unfortunately, this often leads to a low self-esteem and the hopeless feeling that becoming a woman is an obstacle to progress.
Fortunately, Belfine is one of the tens of thousands of girls benefitting from a Huru Kit. Not only has it helped her manage her period, it has encouraged her in pursuing her dream of becoming a lawyer and helping other children.
Belfine and her family are very grateful to Huru. She put it this way, “my mother will not have to buy disposable pads, hence she saves the little money she gets from my dad to buy food.” Belfine continues to attend school, creating for herself the opportunity to fulfill her aspirations.
Belfine’s story is being repeated across Kenya as Huru brings hope of perfect attendance for the whole year!
August 14th, 2012 | Comments (0)
The Summer Issue of Ms. Magazine features one of our Huru Girls! Faith Wambui, a 13-year-old student in Mukuru, Kenya, tells how she’d like to give back for the generosity of Huru contributors:
“My dreams are that when I grow up, I would also like to help girls who are just like me who don’t have money or their parents cannot afford the money to buy pads every month.”
Faith’s quote is the final word in an article titled For the Price of a Pad by Linda Villarosa, which highlights efforts being made by Huru and other organizations to stop the flow of girls missing school because they can’t afford the price of a pad.
With your support, Huru has provided a year’s supply of reusable sanitary pads to over 30,000 girls in Kenya. That’s a start to reaching the estimated 800,000 girls in Kenya alone who miss school every month because they can’t afford pads. We have a long way to go to fulfill Huru’s mission to ensure that no child be denied an education because she can’t afford a sanitary pad.
June 13th, 2012 | Comments (1)
250 Dining for Women Chapters around the world host a dinner giving circle every month. The mission is to improve the lives of those living in extreme poverty by funding programs that foster good health, education, and economic self‐sufficiency, and to cultivate educational giving circles that inspire individuals to make a positive difference.
Huru has the good fortune of being a featured Dining for Women project this month. Check in with a chapter in your area and help Huru provide Huru Kits to 1,625 at-risk girls in Kenya.
Dining for Women is “changing the world one dinner at a time.” Pull up a chair and dine in for Huru!
Website: http://www.diningforwomen.org/
January 24th, 2012 | Comments (0)
Happy 2012! We’re starting our New Year by getting 1250 Huru Kits to at-risk girls in the Nyanza and Rift Valley Provinces, thanks to a $17,000 grant from the Safaricom Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya. At our first distribution, on January 16, Huru Hero(ine) Pastor Helen Waweru offered HIV/AIDS prevention training to 185 girls at the Ndabibi Primary School in Naivasha. The girls at Ndabibi told Pastor Helen that they’d been using old socks and parts of mattresses because they couldn’t afford sanitary protection. Pastor Helen reports that the need for Huru Kits in this area is still great.
Pastor Helen Hands Huru Kit to Ndabibi Primary Students
Among the girls Huru has reached so far, there’s been a 96% decline in chronic absenteeism, and an 85% improvement in academic performance. Now Pastor Helen is collecting names of other girls in the area who badly need Huru Kits. We resolve to find the funds to get a kit to every girl!
December 20th, 2011 | Comments (1)
November 29th, 2011 | Comments (0)
What will you do for World AIDS day? We’re supporting the UN’s Getting to Zero campaign—we’re fighting for zero new HIV infections, period. Join us by donating a Huru Kit to one girl today, and visit us on Facebook or email us (info@huruinternational.org) to tell us your ideas for how Huru can distribute more kits and “Get to Zero” by 2015.
Here are the UN’s Ten Goals for 2015:
October 20th, 2011 | Comments (1)
Nonprofit Friends of Londiani have joined with an international team of Girl Scout and Girl Guide leaders to form Girls for Girls, a pilot program to provide Huru Kits to 4,500 girls this year. How’s that going? “Before I thought men were more important than women. The programme made me realise that girls are as important, and even more important, than men,” one Huru girl told us with a smile.
October 13th, 2011 | Comments (0)
The ladies at Dining for Women have a deliciously creative idea—a dinner giving circle, where everyone brings a tasty dish to share for a monthly meal, and pools the extra money that they would have spent at a restaurant. They spend these “leftovers” from hundreds of chapters on great grassroots programs that help women in need all over the world. Stay tuned to learn what’s next on the menu for DfW!
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