Big sisters are sexual reproductive health and rights champions from Kiambu,who play a big role in ensuring all the adolescent young girls and women they mentor have healthy reproductive health lives while still accessing quality services. To enable them to offer accurate, correct and factual information to the AGYW they engage with in their communities, their capacities are continuously strengthened, to better how they carry out their sessions, how they handle the AGYW and how they make best financial decisions for themselves. Village Savings and Loans association (VSLA) is a group of young like-minded women who are big sisters that came together to pull their resources and savings to ensure they are financially stable and secure. In Kiambu we have two groups of Big sisters that are from Thika/Juja and Ruiru. The two groups recently had their VSLA groups registered named Seraphim Self Help Group and Pretty Savers to enable them get access to financial institutions such as saccos/banks and government loans/grants. Seraphim Self Help group and Pretty savers group are financial safe nets meant to ensure the Big Sisters have the correct financial disciplines to enable them make well informed decisions about their financial lives which will in turn have effect on how they handle their roles and responsibilities as Big Sisters. With these groups the girls have managed to pull their resources and help out each other establish their own businesses while supporting ones in need of financial aid through lending of loans which they pay at an agreed percentage interest thus creating more income within themselves. They aim to go further with investing hoping to provide more employment to the rest of the AGYW they engage with while still continuing to impact sexual reproductive health and rights information. They believe with financial stability and the correct and factual reproductive health information, there will be a great reduction in the numbers of unplanned teenage pregnancies, sexual and gender-based violence against AGYW. They also envision to set up a joint venture as Big Sisters including other areas of investments such as lands, government bonds and hold stakes in their local transport industries which will also create a haven for AGYW.
