WARNING: Christine's story is honest, frank and graphic... and powerful. 

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Christine K.

Days for Girls Zariel Enterprise

Nairobi, Kenya

DfG University August 2015 Graduate

 

I'm 43 years old. When I was 12 years old I stated to menstruate and my mum had 

left me to stay with my grandmother. Life was not a bed of roses. I had to cut my 

clothes to sew them together so as to get a pad. One day at school my period come 

and my dress was soaked in blood. I went home. I found my sewn pads had been 

thrown away by my cousins that we stayed with at my grandmother’s. It was hard. I 

could not go to school. For three days a month, I could sleep the whole day. I used 

leaves. It didn’t help. The old rags were no more, so no more school. Every three 

days of the month… The teachers realized there was a problem. The male teacher 

saw a weak spot. So, they gave me money for sex so as to get pads. Life was hard. 

Even my close relatives could rape me now. 

My grandmother had sent me away. I went to live with my step-mum. Now here I 

had to saw the rags together. But not for long. At 14 years old, I was pregnant and 

dropped out of school. I slept in the street. I was a street girl with a litle girl. A lady 

took me in as a house girl (live-in maid). That’s when I met my husband and he took 

me to train in dressmaking. But then I had a passion that if other girls are going 

though what I went through, I have to do something. 

I started making liners but without shields as I did not know how to make them yet. 

I had an idea that I could donate to orphan girls in church and at home. Then 2013 

2014 I met Carrie G. from the United States and she asked me if I would love a 

scholarship to go study with Days for Girls. I said “yes Carrie and Marilyn, but on one 

condition that no writing and reading.” They both told me it’s just sewing, no 

writing. I was so excited my dream of changing the lifestyle of girls was in my hands. 

I was crying in the airport not because I was afraid, but because I knew no other girl 

will have to pass what I went though. I was there. 

I'm glad I went. My life was never the same. I loved the training even more than the 

sewing. I thank god for Libby, Vicky, Diva, Diana, and everyone in Uganda for making 

me feel at peace and at home. The ideas I got have really changed my perspective on 

girls and their needs. Now I have three enterprises: Butere, Masai Mara, and Zariel 

I'm aiming to do great things by changing the lifestyle of girls in Kenya and the 

world as my life has changed since I left Uganda. As an ambassador for Days for 

Girls, I say this to men too: give us pen to go to school not their penis, to ask for our 

books not our boobs, to pay for our school fees not our bride price, Give us 

education not your ejaculation and I say no to early marriage, but instead to keep 

girls in school with Days for Girls Kits. I had no one to protect me from all this, but 

now as Days for Girls Zariel Enterprise I stand for girls. I’m so proud of what my purpose in life is. 

My gratitude goes to all who made it possible.

 

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