STRIDES to Dignity: MTG and Stakeholders Launch Initiative for Quality Health Services for girls and women in Kilifi.
By Mwanakombo Hassan
On 12th November, we joined partners and the Kilifi County Government in Ganze for the official launch of the STRIDES Project, a transformative seven year initiative aimed at strengthening health systems and improving access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights services for women, youth, and adolescent girls across Kilifi County.
The STRIDES Project, funded under Canada’s global commitment to resilient health systems, will be implemented across five sub counties in Kilifi. It focuses on improving the quality of health services, expanding SRHR access, addressing gender gaps in healthcare, and ensuring communities remain resilient during health and climate related shocks. The project brings together key partners including the International Centre for Reproductive Health Kenya, Aga Khan University, Aga Khan Health Services, and Aga Khan Foundation. Each partner plays a distinct role, from equipping health facilities and strengthening service providers’ skills to conducting research and offering technical oversight to improve service quality.
Moving the Goalposts is playing a central role in creating demand for SRHR information and services at the community level. Through its long standing network of girls’ football leagues, safe spaces, and peer education programs, MTG will mobilize adolescents, build knowledge on SRHR, strengthen referral pathways, and work directly with families and community leaders to reduce barriers to accessing care. MTG also played a key role in making the launch possible as part of the organizing committee, mobilizing adolescent girls from its league fields to attend, and leading sensitization sessions on menstrual hygiene during the event.
“MTG will continue to innovate using football and other community driven approaches to ensure boys, men, girls and women are transformed and are indeed harnessed and that they are able to change their lives.” Evelyn Lele, MTG Board Chair.
For years, we’ve used football and community dialogues to equip girls with knowledge about their bodies, rights, and choices, and this project takes that mission even further. Together with our partners, we’re working to ensure that every girl in Kilifi can access quality, inclusive, and sustainable healthcare and live a life of dignity and empowerment.
The partnership between MTG, the County Government of Kilifi, and other stakeholders is designed to strengthen health systems from the ground up. By combining community driven approaches, technical expertise, improved facility readiness, and evidence-based practice, the STRIDES Project aims to ensure that every girl and woman in Kilifi can access quality, inclusive, and sustainable healthcare. This collaborative model places girls at the center of decision making and builds long term structures that promote dignity, empowerment, and equal opportunity.
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