A former Townsville student has lauched a charity dedicated to helping young women in Africa

A trip to Kenya as a volunteer has led a former St Margaret Mary’s College student to launch her own charity in the African nation

A TRIP to Kenya as a volunteer has led a former St Margaret Mary’s College student to launch her own charity in the African nation.

Former Townsville local Victoria Porter learnt of horrific cases of sexual violence against women during that visit to Kitengela, a small town south of Kenya’s capital of Nairobi in 2017.

Last month, after years of hard work, Ms Porter launched Jifunze International in Townsville, a charity dedicated to helping educate young women.

“Once I was there in Kenya and I learned enough of the sexual violence, I could not just walk away and do nothing about it,” Ms Porter said.

On her first six week visit as a volunteer she was helping people who had been diagnosed with AIDS. They told us they were too scared to tell their kids they had the virus so we did an education program with the kids and learnt what they needed.

MORE NEWS>>>

• Bashed woman suffers panic attacks and lived life of a ‘hermit’

• Close the Gap report calls for changes to justice system to create equity for Indigenous Australians

• Lawyer says lack of support for residential carers systemic

“After that we realised the kids were not well equipped or educated on puberty and sexual health, and there were a number of them suffering from sexual violence in their community.

“It was just at the end of the six weeks that I really understood what needed to be done and that I could make valuable change and valuable assistance to the community.”

At first Ms Porter had no plans to start a charity and began by sponsoring a child at the primary school in Kitengela.

JIFUNZE INTERNATIONAL

“Initially I decided to sponsor a girl who had been affected by the poverty in Kitengela and then I decided I wanted to reach out and conduct an education program on sexual health and sexual violence through her primary school.”

Before leaving Kenya in 2017 she made contact with an education organisation based in Nairobi called Ujamma, which runs a program called No Means No.

“We asked them, if we pay you to come from Nairobi, will you come to Kitengela to work with us to educate the kids in the school.

“They agreed, so I came back to Australia and fundraised enough money to bring the teachers from the city to Kitengela to run education sessions.”

Ms Porter returned to Kitengela in 2019 to see the education program roll out at the school.

“We educated 766 kids in conjunction with Ujamma.”

She expanded the education program to the town’s hospital and also made contact with another Kenyan organisation called Days for Girls, which would supply sanitary kits for women and girls in Kitengela.

The kits contain underwear, shields and liners made from material that can be taken out and washed so the menstrual kit can be reused for up to three years.

Sanitary kits from the Kenyan organisation Days for girls. Picture: Supplied

Now based in Melbourne, Ms Porter graduated from St Margaret Mary’s in 2005, but is no stranger to helping those in need and credits her mother Roberta and father Brendan Porter for ingraining in her the need to help others.

“As a young child growing up in Northern Ireland, he (Brendan) was a part of the PCA at my school so we worked on charity events including organising a shipping container to go to orphanages in Romania.

“I think what he has done there and here in Australia with Rotary is part and parcel of how I have grown up, so it is definitely in my blood.”

Jifunze International was established in 2020 but had its launch here in Townsville recently because of Ms Porter’s strong links to the city.

“I grew up in Townsville and I have had support for the charity from the Townsville community and the Rotary clubs in Townsville have been a huge support so I wanted to give back and have the launch here.”

Currently Jifunze International is focusing on a single community in Kenya, but Ms Porter said they would like to expand to other areas in the future.

She said the charity had four goals, the first to provide health and wellbeing education around puberty, sexual health and sexual violence and provide pathways for women and girls to be able to escape domestic violence.

JIFUNZE INTERNATIONAL

“The second is to provide menstrual health kits and ensure girls have access to pads or reusable pads to ensure they are not missing out on school.

“The third is to look at other ways we can assist the health and wellbeing of the community.”

She said this goal was already bearing fruit as the charity had been given two parcels of land at the school and the hospital to develop community gardens.

“The one at the school will be used to provide lunches for the kids. The students will look after the garden and take nutritional lessons about what they are growing in the garden.

“At the hospital the women who have attended our domestic violence seminars will be looking after those gardens and using the produce as items for sale so they can create financial stability for themselves.

“Once they have that financial stability it makes it a lot easier for them to leave violent situations.

“A lot of the time they are staying in those situations because they don’t have the financial ability to leave. “Our fourth goal is to never forget where we come from, learn from the mistakes we have made and always look to the community so they can teach us as much as we are teaching them.

“These issues are not solely in Kenya but I think Kenya stole my heart a little bit,” she said.

>>For more information visit the charity’s website at jifunzeinternational.com

Originally published as A former Townsville student has lauched a charity dedicated to helping young women in Africa