Addressing cultural hindrances to Girl child education in Sakwa,Bondo
Despite fast paced technological advances and modernity of the 21st century, cultural beliefs and practices still present a major hindrance to girls’ access to education. The rural Bondo of Siaya County in Kenya is such community which still has numerous cultural influences negating the progress the country is making towards millennium development goal, target four of eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005 and in tertiary education by no later than 2015.Intergenerational reflection meetings were held in twenty communities reaching a proximate number of 1300 participants comprising boys, girls, youth, parents, teachers and community leaders. The purpose reflection meetings were to identify and examine the social and cultural systems inhibiting enrolment, retention of girls in primary school and transition to secondary schools. The outcome of the meeting was to have the communities gain critical awareness of their status of girls’ education through reflection and generate further action to avert the situation.

Keywords: education, culture, girls

This essay is an analysis of a month long reflection meetings with children, youth, adults and cultural leaders. The meetings aimed at having an understanding on how cultural influences impacts on the contemporary ideas, decisions and practices regarding girls’ education and possibly trigger a change. The meetings adopted the concept of Critical Consciousness by Paulo Freire with the focus of breaking the silence and achieving an in-depth understanding of the negative cultural influences on girls’ in Nyang’oma and Maranda Divisions of Bondo sub-county. Nonetheless, of importance was to have the community members have a collective action towards mitigating the cultural barriers to girls’ education for greater access to