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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NAIROBI 005367 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KHIV KWMN KE
SUBJECT:  KENYA GIRL GUIDES ASSOCIATION:  CIVIL SOCIETY 
AT ITS BEST 
 
¶1.  (U) Summary:  The Kenya Girl Guides Association (KGG) 
unveiled its new emphasis on educating girls and young 
women on health issues, especially reproductive health, 
at a six hour ceremony featuring addresses by First Lady 
Lucy Kibaki, Minister of Youth Dr. Mohammed Kuti, and MP 
Njoki Ndungu, champion of Kenya's Sexual Offenses Act. 
KGG is a fine example of a non-partisan Kenyan civil 
society organization pursuing ambitious social and 
political goals through a long term strategy and vision. 
End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) PolCouns attended the re-launching ceremony of 
the Kenya Girl Guides Association at the invitation of 
the State Minister for Youth, with whom the mission is 
working closely on CJTF-HOA civil affairs projects in his 
northern Kenya constituency.  The six hour event 
showcased the work of the Girl Guides to promote vital 
social and health messages throughout the country. 
 
¶3.  (U) KGG is implementing a rigorous PEPFAR-funded age- 
appropriate peer education program where girls can earn 
up to 4 merit badges in AIDS prevention. To provide 
HIV/AIDS education and information to students and the 
community, KGG conducts peer education activities working 
with educational institutions, NGOs, religious bodies, 
the private sector and local administrators. The peer 
educators disseminate information to students and 
community members, targeting over 100 schools and 
reaching more than 20,000 young people. 
 
Who Are the Girl Guides? 
 
¶4.  (U) The Kenya equivalent of the Girl Scouts of 
America, KGG is the oldest and largest youth organization 
in Kenya with over 130,000 members. KGG includes 
Brownies, Girl Guides, Rangers and Ranger Cadets, all 
between the ages of 6 and 25 years, who are organized by 
Guide Leaders. The Kenya Girl Guides have a long history 
in Kenya offering informal education through chapters run 
out of schools throughout the country.  Typically, 
teachers appoint students considered potential peer 
leaders to join the guides.  Many prominent Kenyan women 
in politics, the civil service and the professions were 
once guides.  The leadership of the organization are 
chosen through elections and serve on a voluntary basis. 
KGG is associated with the World Association of Girl 
Guides and Girl Scouts, which are active in over a 
hundred countries. 
 
What are their goals? 
 
¶5.  (U) The stated mission of KGG is "to enable girls and 
young women to develop to their fullest potential as 
responsible citizens of the world."  KGG seeks to empower 
"girls and young women so they can take responsibility 
for all matters affecting their lives and live and work 
with men on an equal basis."  It operates a program of 
value-based education to primary and secondary school- 
aged girls.  KGG seeks to give girls and young women "the 
ability to make their own choices with regard to 
traditional beliefs and cultural practices...the skills 
and the opportunities to organize and use their 
collective power to advocate for justice, fairness and 
equality on behalf of themselves and others...to generate 
income, own and control assets, access and use 
credit...to influence decision-makers, including men, 
through their advocacy of fairer, appropriate allocation 
of resources and to change policies to those that favor 
equality of women and all disadvantaged persons." 
 
¶6.  (U) KGG's re-launching ceremony was held to unveil 
the worldwide Girl Guides movement's new emphasis on 
adolescent health issues, especially reproductive health. 
Its seven major themes are fighting HIV/AIDS, making 
healthy food choices, preventing adolescent pregnancy, 
the importance of talking about sex, talking about the 
 
NAIROBI 00005367  002 OF 003 
 
 
dangers of drugs, banning smoking in public places and 
creating opportunities to discover one's full potential. 
 
Re-Launching Ceremony Highlights 
 
¶7.  (U) The ceremony featured groups and individual 
guides from throughout Kenya presenting skits, poems and 
songs on social and health themes.  In many cases these 
presentations were extremely frank and explicit, and 
quite moving.  Issues treated in these presentations 
included rape and other acts of violence against women, 
child molestation, gender inequality, poverty, teenage 
pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and prostitution.  The top 
performances were broadcast on Kenyan television.  These 
dramatic presentations showcased the effectiveness of 
Girl Guides in educating their peers about these issues 
and the dangers they pose. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The ceremony opened and closed with Christian 
prayers, without a nod to Kenya's other faiths, although 
KGG chapters from Muslim-majority areas were participants 
in the ceremony, as was the Minister of Youth, himself a 
Muslim.  A prominent KGG board member from Kenya's Hindu 
community was also present.  Comment:  KGG has its roots 
in Church-led schooling.  It apparently has not expanded 
its notion of the spiritual to embrace its non-Christian 
members.  End Comment. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The address by the chief guest and newly 
appointed KGG patron, Her Excellency Lucy Kibaki, First 
Lady of Kenya, introduced a sour note into the 
proceedings.  Kibaki began her remarks by castigating KGG 
for waiting four years to appoint her as patron.  "In 
every country in the world the First Lady is always made 
the patron of the Girl Guides.  I am a former Girl Guide 
myself.  What excuse do you have for not naming me patron 
in 2002 when we came to power?"  Comment:  Highly 
unpopular Lucy Kibaki has a well-known reputation for 
ungracious behavior.  State House generally keeps her out 
of the public eye to avoid political damage to the 
President.  Apparently, the thinking was "What harm can 
she possibly do at a Girl Guides ceremony?"  Her State 
House handlers underestimated Lucy Kibaki?s talent for 
causing offense.  End Comment. 
 
¶10.  (U) The address by the State Minister for Youth 
Affairs, Honorable Doctor Mohammed Kuti, MP for Isiolo 
South, featured his vision of adapting the traditions 
found in several Kenyan communities of age groups sharing 
adulthood initiation rites into a national youth service 
organization that would bring together Kenyan youth from 
throughout the country for shared civic education and 
civic action projects, thus building cross-communal 
generational identity around shared civic values.  Kuti 
stressed the importance of preserving the best of 
traditional values while letting go of harmful 
traditional practices and ethnic prejudices.  He also 
made the point that he as a Muslim medical doctor had 
thoroughly investigated and rejected claims that female 
genital mutilation is a required Islamic practice.  "I 
concluded that it is in fact Haram (forbidden), and I am 
not at all alone in that determination." 
 
¶11.  (U) The Honorable Lady Justice Joyce Alouch and 
nominated MP Honorable Njoki Ndungu both gave talks about 
the importance of educating girls and women about the 
provisions of the recently passed Sexual Offenses Act. 
They offered to speak to KGG chapters throughout Kenya to 
get the word out.  They praised KGG as the most effective 
means of peer education among girls and young women in 
Kenya. 
 
Comments:  A Kenyan Civil Society Organization on the 
March 
 
¶12.  (U) KGG is a fine example of a non-partisan Kenyan 
 
NAIROBI 00005367  003 OF 003 
 
 
civil society organization pursuing ambitious social and 
political goals through a long term strategy and vision. 
The conventional wisdom in Kenya holds that civil society 
organizations today are far tamer and less effective than 
they were during the height of campaigning for multiparty 
democracy in the 1990s.  Yet the times and the issues 
have changed greatly since that confrontational period. 
Kenya's present transitional political phase is a 
confused mess in many respects, with reformers and old- 
style hacks found on both sides of the political divide 
and minimal legislative progress being made to address 
the key issues facing the nation.  Fortunately for Kenya, 
as American history amply illustrates, positive social 
and political change need not come from the political 
class alone.  Long Live the Kenya Girl Guides 
Association! 
RANNEBERGER