When girls become breadwinners: Inside Homa Bay's fight to keep its daughters in school

By  George Odiwuor

Correspondent

Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

• At 17, Nora has left school and works as a house help in Homa Bay to support her sick mother and two younger siblings.
• Her story reflects a wider crisis, with many girls lost between primary and secondary school due to poverty, pregnancy, early marriage, family responsibilities and other barriers.
• A new Gender in Education Action Plan 2026–2030 seeks to address these challenges.

Nora Achieng* should be in Form Three, copying notes off a blackboard and worrying about end-term exams. Instead, at 17, she wakes up at 5am to sweep a compound that is not her family's, wash clothes for children who are not her siblings and cook for a mother who is not her own.

In January, the firstborn in a family of three packed her few belongings, boarded a ferry across Lake Victoria from Mfangano Island and travelled by road to Homa Bay Town. She had no relative waiting for her there, and no job lined up. She had only one reason for going: her mother was sick, and she needed to find a way to support her.

"My mother suffers from a kidney problem. She is unable to do difficult tasks and spends most of her time at home," Nora says, her voice low.

Her father, she says, is present but absent. He is able to work, but the money he earns disappears at a trading centre on the island, where he drinks.

"He can work and fend for us, but he spends all the money he gets on alcohol," she explains.

At home, there were days without flour, soap and other basic household items. Being a teenage girl felt like a luxury her family could not afford: sanitary pads, underwear, school fees, the small things that quietly push girls out of class, were simply out of reach.

So Nora made the choice no child should have to make. She left school to fend for herself, her ailing mother and her siblings.

"I did not know where I would end up. I just wanted to find something to do so that my mother could get something to eat," she says.

Homa Bay Town was not kind to her at first. A 16-year-old girl alone, asking for work, raised suspicion, and people assumed she had a sinister motive. Most doors closed on her until one finally accepted and hired her as a house help.

Her salary is Sh4,500 a month. She sends Sh4,000 of it to her mother and keeps the remaining Sh500 for her personal items.

"I send Sh4,000 to my mother and use the remaining Sh500 to buy personal items," she says.

With that Sh4,000, her mother buys food and medicine, and keeps Nora's two younger siblings alive. The maths does not add up, but somehow, it has to.

Nora still dreams of a classroom, and speaks about school as if she never left it. But every time she thinks of going back, she sees her mother's face.

"I want to go back, but who will feed my mother if I leave?" she asks.

A crisis bigger than one girl

In Homa Bay, Nora's story  reflects that of many teenage girls who are out of school due to factors beyond their control, unable to learn because of poverty, illness, child labour and parental neglect. While some become house helps like Nora, others are defiled, impregnated and forced into early motherhood and marriage. For Nora, the path instead made her a breadwinner.

According to Population Council Kenya, more than 30 per cent of girls in Homa Bay are lost between primary and secondary school, dropping out to engage in income-generating activities or to get married off. Data from the organisation shows that female learners in the county actually outperform their male counterparts in primary school completion, with 85.5 per cent of girls aged 15 to 19 completing primary school, compared to 70.3 per cent of boys.

Lack children

But often, the girls drop out along the way, pushed out by poverty, defilement and early marriage. Some vanish as soon as they join Grade Eight, Nine or Ten. Secondary school completion rates in the region stand at 56.7 per cent for boys and 52.9 per cent for girls among those aged 20 to 24.

Population Council Kenya found that the county does not lack children who want to learn; what it lacks is a system that keeps them in class once poverty, pregnancy and child-headed homes start pulling them out.

The findings were presented to county officials, researchers, gender stakeholders, security officials, religious leaders and education partners, who gathered to confront the uncomfortable statistics.

During the meeting on September 8, 2026, the group launched the Gender in Education Action Plan 2026–2030, a five-year multisectoral framework meant to address gender-related barriers in education and advance gender equality in access, participation and inclusion across Homa Bay County.

County Education Director Eunice Khaemba said the region's adolescent girls face what she called a "triple threat": teenage pregnancy, new HIV infections and gender-based violence. Girls in the region, education officials noted, also suffer from early marriages.

Ms Khaemba explained that some girls are admitted to school after they have passed the recommended admission age, with over-age enrolment, poverty and being orphaned all contributing to the delay.

"Those who reach puberty while still in primary school and come from poor families are the most vulnerable. High HIV prevalence in the region makes many children become orphans, with some forced to take care of their siblings," she said.

She added that girls who take on parental responsibility often return to school later than their peers and struggle to concentrate in class once they do.

"Older girls in school are more likely to become pregnant than those who are younger," Ms Khaemba said.

Liliane Agesa, a research officer for the Evidence for Gender in Education Resources (IGA) project at Population Council Kenya, described the plan as a comprehensive framework developed to tackle gender issues in education in the lakeside county. The IGA project has also worked in three other counties: Kilifi, Narok and Laikipia.

Researchers used data from the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS), then went beyond the numbers to speak to teachers, parents, chiefs and learners themselves to understand the key barriers to education, particularly for girls.

Community awareness

"Among the four counties, Homa Bay has the worst dropout prevalence for girls at primary level, because we are seeing more than 30 per cent loss of girls from primary to secondary," Ms Agesa said.

The plan also seeks to help boys stay in school. "We also lose boys. The rate of attendance in primary and secondary varies, meaning in Homa Bay, both boys and girls have their unique challenges," the researcher said.

Among its recommendations, the plan calls for greater community awareness and involvement in preventing and responding to gender-based violence, increased access and participation in education, and the promotion of gender-responsive learning environments. It also pushes for enhanced knowledge of the legal and policy provisions already in place in the county.

At the launch, stakeholders committed to supporting initiatives that keep girls in school. Homa Bay Education Executive Martin Opere said the plan has given the county government justification to spend money on secondary and vocational education. While some school levels fall outside devolved functions, he explained, the county can still offer support, since success at primary level means little if children disappear afterwards.

"We are doing very well at access, retention and completion at primary level. The main challenge is at senior school. The data confirms very well why county governments must now be able to support secondary education by issuing bursaries to senior school students, and even scholarships at vocational training centres," Opere said.

He added that the plan will guide budgeting decisions and the deployment of teachers and ECDE caregivers. "We need to bring in even our politicians who control NG-CDF. If the barrier is about fees, access and retention, they can also be able to come up with a better intervention when we join hands and help learners," he said.

The Action Plan 2026–2030 is now that system, on paper. The next four years will test whether it can keep girls like Nora from vanishing out of the classroom altogether.

Homa Bay Deputy County Commissioner Philip Kipsang said the county needs an education system where boys and girls have equal access to schooling.

"Learners with disabilities should also be helped. Girls should have access to menstrual hygiene services. All learners should also be able to participate in co-curricular activities. This will ensure every learner achieves their full potential," he said.

Kipsang noted that investing in a girl's education is an investment in the whole community. He wants schools to be places where girls are protected from sexual violence, and urged adolescents to speak up when they face challenges such as sexual abuse. Full implementation of the action plan, he said, requires support at every level, and should mark the beginning of measurable results and action, not just another document.

For Nora, her wish is that the plan is fully implemented. She sometimes sits outside and watches schoolchildren in uniform walk past. She just hopes her siblings will not have to make the same decision she did.