 This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. Early motherhood is often looked at negatively and every effort to get a solution hits a snag. However, Tula Rono, the founder of Sprouted Hope, has something the society can adopt. I am Nyangueso Grenis. So Tula, share with us what you do. My name is Tula Rono, a founder and CEO of Sprouted Hope community-based organization. Sprouted Hope is located in Obunga, but our offices are in Shaorimoyo, Kisumu. While Sprouted Hope is at the age of 15, I was a teen mother. There were so many challenges that I encountered in the community. First of all, stigma and discrimination in the society, rejection by a parent, one of my dear parents, and stigma in school, which more so was in a mixed academy. And it was so hard for me and later I came to realize that so many other girls are going through this and nobody is there to walk with them the journey. That was when we gave birth or we decided to form Sprouted Hope. Sprouted Hope works with teen mothers, but also works with teens in the community. Why both teen mothers and teens is because we are doing it as a prevention and a curative in the essence of we work with those who are already teen mothers, but we try to reduce the number of teen motherhood in the community. So how did it all begin? It all began in 2021. I was so depressed during that time and because I was previously diagnosed with postpartum at the age of 16, I decided to channel my negative energy to something positive so that I don't have or sit down and come and regret on what I've been doing. So that is when I call my friends, majority of my friends are teen mothers, so we can relate and we can understand what happens. So at that point, the pressure was on me giving birth to my son and the atmosphere was not conducive because the reason why I was being chased away from my parents' house was because my son and I were already grown up or she felt like I have already attained whatever I wanted to attain in life or she had already taught me to the point that I would now leave her house. So at that point, I tried and looked at myself from a point of we are not poor, we are not disadvantaged and we have so many advantages as compared to others. So I sat down and asked what about those who don't have mothers, what about those who don't have fathers, what about those who dropped out from school from where they were because I managed to finish school and I got a B plus and I had even gone to university. So I was trying to imagine what about those who have not gotten the privileges that have been able to get in life and that's now where I decided to push the negative energy that I had to develop something so as to serve the community. Interesting. I would love to congratulate you for standing up and the depression did not let you fall, you just went and pivoted on your own. And so how do you reach out to the teen mothers and the ones that you, your target audience our approach is always the community. We go to chiefs in the community. Why is the way the government has centralized it is whenever they want information on how many girls have not been able to go back to school, how many youths have not been able to go back to school, they go to the chiefs because the chief are the one who are in the community, they are the one who are the first contact person to the community. So most of the time we go to the chief and request them to work with us, mobilize for us, tell us which or what people are having challenges in the community, give us a village elder to be able to work with us to the community and identify do our assessment. And from that point is where we get beneficiaries. And what kind of activities do you do in your organization? We have various activities. First of all, we have Elimisha Jami. Elimisha Jami is to educate the community about matters of peace, SRHR and mental health. This is mostly done in schools. While schools is we are trying to look at it from a point of peace is the first thing before anyone wants to live where they are, whether at home, whether in school or where they are staying. So the approach is can we solve the problems that are there before somebody gets out from that place? Can we try to reintegrate them? And this is what we've been trying to do. Reintegrating those who are not okay with their parents, with their teachers so that the environment may be conducive and they may not have difficult challenges in the various things that they do. That is Elimisha Jami. Then to chanwane is for skills. Most of us live school and say tunata futa. And now we are asking ourselves who will teach us the different skills? Who will nurture the different skills that we have? Who will support us whenever we lose our parents and we want to go to relatives to support us? So to chanwane is to help us get skills. These skills are to grow our mind. They are to expose us. They are to give us a leeway or a leverage whenever we are finishing school. We've been practicing these things for a very given period of time. This will give us perfection or give us the strength to be living ourselves in whatever we do. Number one. Number two, when you start selling something now, you will have some little money. You'll know how to manage that money. And that means there's some that you will save. Maybe there are others that you will reinvest. If you reinvest for a given period of time, you will find the various things that you need. By the time you're finishing school, you have all the equipment or you have majority of the equipment. That means you don't need to go and tell somebody, give me a loan to do this. You've already bought majority of the things. So what does that mean? You're able to kickstart that business. You're able to use whatever you've bought to do something before you now achieve what you want to achieve. Instead of saying, tap our loan, who will give you the loan? I'm looking for capital. So from the little savings and from the little skills that you're building, you're getting perfect. And that's this means that you're improving on yourself. And then we have CC. CC is for us. Us is the staff, the community, which the community are caregivers to the teens, who are the most immediate caregivers to the teens. They are parents and teachers. Most of the time, students or teens say they are not getting good treatment at home. Why? Our parents might be busy looking for money. They might be busy doing other things, you see, but they forget or try not to remember that we also matter as teens. So this is just to come and remind them and also understand them, understand what challenges they are facing. Reassure them that it is not only them, the other parents are also going through the same thing or might be going through a difficult thing. But now it's just a safe space where they can share, they can learn, they can talk and relive themselves from the different challenges they are facing at work and at home. When you talked about the activities you do to raise finances or to raise capital, what are these activities? From now to Chanoane, we bake cakes. From the cakes we sell. Whenever we want cakes, we sell them. We do domarts. You see, when we make the domarts we sell, we do bottle decorations. These are used on weddings as centerpieces. We do soap making. These are sold to different people who need the liquid soap for use. So these activities are the teens, the ones who are doing them or you are the organization? The teens do them. We train them. But we don't want to give them a leverage of having child labor. So we train them for them to know. But now on demand we are the ones who make because we also give them an opportunity to go back to school. We don't want anyone to drop out of school because they are making for us. So it's just a skill that we are passing to them. But any cash that we get from it, we at least buy for them something. We don't give them cash. Why they'll know the value of cash? Now we buy them commodities that they need whenever they want to go to school. For example, sanitary towels, stationaries, that will help them in the development or improvement of the academic. Interesting. I am impressed by you because you're young yet you have such a wise mind, such an advanced mind as a young person. And I would congratulate you for that. And I would love to ask how has your experience been so far since you started? My experience has been nice. I can say I've felt satisfied as a leader. Why is on the first step I approached the community. Our approach is always getting to understand what the community needs. Like on a March-April holiday we had a training. On the roll out of the training we didn't expect as many teens as we got. We got 200 teenagers. Interesting. From Nyalenda, Manyata and Kamakor. That already showed us that what we are doing was worth it. To a point that one child went for a camp during the holiday and when she came back she was like I have not been able to finish my classes and I want to graduate. What can I do? Tell me what I can do because it really helped me or I would love to learn what you people are teaching. But now because I stay with my parents I had to go for the camping. You see what does that tell? It tells us that the children have loved and would love to engage. They've come back from holiday. They were calling to us. Can I? We've had parents calling and asking can we register our children? Can you move to different locations? Can you not just be in Kisumu? How can we access you in other locations? Nice. And based on what you've said how is the response of the society at large? The society is happy because they are saying we are engaging their children and whenever we used to send a message and tell the parents kindly allow your children to come they would always convene the message. That already shows us that the parents are willing and ready to let out their children to come because if the parents were not willing they would have not let us have their children. Yes and then another thing is most of the time we go to the community. We use the resources that are in the community. Volunteers come from that community and the resources that we are using come from that community. Acceptance of that community to give us the various resources in the community already is a way to tell us that the community has accepted whatever we are doing. I would just love to ask how big is your organization? Since that huge number comes in how do you handle all that in a phase of your organization? The organization has only 20 staffs and it's not staff who are staff. It's staff who are volunteers. Okay. And we work on it from an approach of we don't stretch volunteers to visit different places. You only work in that area that you work in. So we operate two days like during the school holidays we're operating two days in a week. So if you're operating two days in a week if you're a volunteer you only operate in one place two times in a week. Okay. Another person will operate two times in one location so you don't have to move from one place to another. It's only me and the person who takes our photos who has to move from one place to another to be able to cover. Okay. And are there any challenges you face while doing this work? Yes they are. At times you don't have enough money and you have to do the activities. So at times I have to get money from my pocket. Yes because you don't have donors we are mobilizing resources locally. Okay. We are using the in-kind supports from the community. And then there's also a challenge of our communities have been taught that you can't do anything or a community-based organization cannot do anything in a community without cash. People are expecting money. They are not looking at it from a point of this or what my child will be taught is much more impactful. So at times we'll find suborganizations when they come and say money you have to sit down with the children and ask or the beneficiaries and ask would you want to attend? Yes. What do we do? What time is best suiting you? You see but they are going the other side not because of whatever they are going to get but because there's that extra money that they'll be given at the end of the day. And this this is actually a solution-based work that you're doing. And if I were to join what do I need to know or what do I how what how should I be or what skills am I required to have? There's no specific skills that you require to have for you to join. We send a link we have a link a google sheet link where you you apply and say whatever skills you have or whatever you think you'll bring on board and then it will be vetted and they'll check through your social media for integrity purpose and some other criminal records if you previously have before being given the opportunity and then you'll now join us a volunteer. And this being your work where do you see it five years or ten years down the line? What plans do you have for it? I am seeing it go far. Why is currently from the activities that we had and the people reaching out. We are currently having a consortium that I sat down and thought through it and it's engaging people in Nakuru and Nairobi to have the same thing that we're having here but now as a partnership so that we don't have to open a branch in Nairobi. We don't have to open a branch somewhere else. Why? Because we'll need more resources but if we work hand in hand with those who are there it is easier because we won't we'll use the manpower that they have we'll use the resources that they have and we'll be able to achieve whatever all of us would love to achieve and that's why the consortium is specifically on organizations that are working on programs of teen mothers. And if I wanted to find you do you have platforms I can go and look for your yes you can find us on Facebook as sprouted hope you can find us on Instagram as sprouted hope you can find us on Twitter as at hope sprouted and you can find us on Instagram as sprouted hope and then you can also find us on our website www.sproutedhope.org and then our telephone number is plus two five four seven seven seven eight nine nine nine five eight and you can also visit us in our office at Shaury Moio opposite or next to Sky FM. So based on your experience of a teen mother in destigmatization you went through and how you came out imagining a champion what are your last thoughts to the community and to the young teens or the young people who actually have survived that and also who have taken up who have lost hope in short. My last let me say my last part in short let's support each other because I would never say or I would never be proud and say if it was not for my dad I would not be where I am because he stood by me from the point he knew that I was pregnant. So any support from those who are around you plays a very big role because they are the ones who will give you the hope the determination and the zeal to match for. So let's always support a teen mother because they are now two and then she needs to work extra hard with the help of those around them to be where she would love to be. As one who has gone through that what are the causes of teen motherhood that the society needs to know about? I would go back to the thematic areas that we are working in. First of all is peace. Most of the time when our parents are fighting or there are issues in the family those who are mostly affected are the children. Also the first ones in the family either a boy or a girl because they always try to shield those who are below them or those who are younger than them. So the first thing is the peace because if there are conflicts at home people won't be happy. This person will try to look for solutions or attention from other places. Another thing is availability of our parents availability of parents is something very important. If your parent is not there to check your homework who will? If your parent is not there to check how you're feeling or how you're fearing on who will you'll find people around you who tell you or who affirm you and tell you you're beautiful. If your parent doesn't tell you today you're beautiful who will? If your parent doesn't tell you today you're clever who will? You see so some of the challenges are absentee parents and not having time for your children and discomfort and peace not educating your children because even empowerment how many of us do our parents sit down with us and tell us you've grown you're now menstruating this is what you need this is how you dispose them. You see when you grow you'll you'll now start eating maybe more than whatever you used to eat and try to educate us on the small things that we assume or we see are not are not of much importance. And another thing there are these situations where a young lady has become with child and now she becomes so distressed she neglects the child. Have you encountered such situations? Yes I was in that situation because whenever my child would cry I would cry but there are so many things that come with it because behind my mind or in my thoughts I was suicidal nobody knew I was suicidal about myself I was suicidal about my child and all that is a sign that she is not okay she needs help she needs someone to talk to you don't just need medication medication might not be the main thing it might just be therapy somebody who's able to listen to you somebody who's able to affirm you somebody who's able to tell you whatever you did was wrong but you need to take a better step on improving on who you are. I have I'm at all about your experience there are many people who just think you know but they don't know the whole reason why and I would love to tell you that everything has you have emerged victorious since you started the sprouted hope you have emerged victorious despite the depression despite the not being supported you have emerged victorious and so I would also tell someone out there who has gone through almost the same thing or the same thing as Tula that it is okay it is okay you are not alone find people like Tula to hold your hand find people like her to support you to train you to give you another light to look up to if you do not have friends look for friends like Tula her organization she has left her handles you can look for her and to the community out there stigmatization is not the way it is not the way as she has said peace is the way have peace at your homes have peace all over and we can have a supportive community and a better generation to come this has been youth in action I am young guesso grannies