Five young mothers have put in the hard work to attain better futures for themselves and their children. We extend hearty congratulations to them for their recent graduation from the Young Mums program.
Kimbilio's Young Mums program provides hairdressing salon and basic business skills training to teenage mums. We give the girls a kit of hairdressing and nail supplies at the end of their 5 month training so that they can set up their own micro business with the hope they don’t have to continue selling sex in order to gain an income. Recently, we've also introduced "coupe, couture" into the program, adding basic sewing skills to their expertise.
The young mothers' back stories are all different, but all are tragic. Many of the girls had their babies while living on the streets. Often these girls have been making a living through prostitution. Other times, their pregnancies result from rape. While the young mothers served by Kimbilio are usually street-connected in acute circumstances, the reproductive situation for girls in general in the DR Congo is challenging -- one in four girls becomes pregnant before the age of 18 (Source: UNICEF)
Vicky is one of the young mums who just completed the training program. She is 19 years old, and her son is 6 months old. She is an orphan who did not attend school and spent a lot of time with street girls. She was impregnated by her friend's uncle, and the uncle refused to take responsibility. From time to time while on the street, Vicky visited the Kimbilio outreach center, which gave the Kimbilio team time to get to know her and figure out how to help. Now that she has completed the program, she will work as a hairdresser at her grandmother's house.
#DRCongo #Lubumbashi #girls #DRC #HautKatanga #streetgirls #streetchildren #teenpregnancy #vocationaltraining
Comentarii