She looks youthful in her neatly dressed school outfit, but she is 22 and already a mother of three.<\/p>\n
Marisa Lenaitorono, a Community Health Worker (CHW) is in class three at Nkopeliani Primary School in Samburu County.<\/p>\n
The young woman was 14 when she dropped out of school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was forced to undergo Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and then married off to a man the age of my father,\u201d she narrates.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot because I was in love with the man, but because of my tradition dictated so. I had no voice to say no,\u201d she continues.<\/p>\n
Faced with hard reality of motherhood at a tender age, Marisa\u2019s dream of acquiring education and later becoming a doctor was in shambles.<\/p>\n
At some point she says she wanted to return to school, but her husband wouldn\u2019t allow her.<\/p>\n
The year 2014 was a turning point in her life after she joined a community health unit in her village that was supported by Amref Health Africa\u2019s Uzazi Salama<\/em> Project.<\/p>\n The project exposed her to m-learning (Leap) innovation (integrated mobile platform which provides avenue to train health workers through text and audio messages).<\/p>\n Despite being illiterate, Marisa has a passion and determination to complete her trainings aided by the platform.<\/p>\n \u201cI was passionate about helping my community live healthy lives. Unfortunately, I didn\u2019t have sufficient reading and writing skills. I was relying on my friends to help, but this wasn\u2019t reliable as sometimes they didn\u2019t have time to listen to me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n With the little support she received, the young woman managed to cover a number of topics including, maternal, child and reproductive health issues (family planning) and antenatal care.<\/p>\n Additionally, being passionate about saving lives, she also learnt how to take care of pregnant mothers and children under five.<\/p>\n It is on this backdrop of being able to learn through mobile that Marisa\u2019s quest and final resolution to return to school at her age began. And this shocked many<\/p>\n Being a hardworking and actively involved in the community health affairs, she was chosen by her community remembers to take care of 24 households in her village.<\/p>\n After suffering for a long time in her marriage, Marisa saw this as a new opportunity knocking her doors.<\/p>\n The M-learning platform has a wide range of topics drawn from the national community health worker curriculum.<\/p>\n Today, the sky is the limit for the young woman, a resident of Nkopiliani village Loosuk Sub-location.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWhen I am through with my primary education, I will proceed to secondary and later join University to complete my dream of becoming a doctor,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Because of her hard work, she was promoted to class three.<\/p>\n According to Gabriel Letukei, a fellow CHW, \u201cEvery time Malisa wanted to read her courses she would reach out to me. She is determined and hardworking in school; she will make it despite the negativity poured on her by other villagers. I am so proud of her.\u201d<\/p>\n She is the best performing student and the class prefect in her class.<\/p>\n Her class teacher, Mrs Napunyu Leparasho said: \u201cMalisa is an encouragement to other girls in the community. She is the oldest student in the school and many of her schoolmates emulate her.\u201d<\/p>\n How does she balance between family, school and CHW work?<\/p>\n \u201cI come home after school at 2 pm and prepare lunch from children. At around 4 pm, I take my bicycle and go to visit two or three households,\u201d says Malisa.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bicycle has really helped me because I save a lot of time when visiting my households.\u201d<\/p>\n In a community where most households are sparsely distributed, Uzazi Salama Project provided 300 bicycles in the county to be used by CHWs like Marisa.<\/p>\n \u201cI only take at least an hour and come back home early to prepare supper for my children and do my homework with them,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n Before, she used to walk for long distances to provide primary health care for her community members.<\/p>\n Malisa hopes that she can set an example for both young and old people in her community and also her fellow CHWs.<\/p>\n Malisa\u2019s encouragement to other girls of her age group who didn\u2019t have an opportunity to go back to school is simple: \u201cIt is never too late.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, she understands the importance of learning and believes through education, she has capacity to scale up her CHW work.<\/p>\n This is a true story of a girl who has proven that it\u2019s never too late to chase your dreams.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Story by Maureen Cherongis<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She looks youthful in her neatly dressed school outfit, but she is 22 and already a mother of three. Marisa Lenaitorono, a Community Health Worker (CHW) is in class three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[151,152,173,174,175],"yst_prominent_words":[176,177,178,54,55,179,180,181,182,162,183,184,185,186,187,188,189,190,191,192],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-success-stories","tag-chw","tag-community-health-worker","tag-marisa-lenaitorono","tag-samburu","tag-uzazi-salama","country-kenya"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/amref.org\/kenya\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/08\/Marisa-during-an-household-visit-e1528225596374.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1","yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n