The Pangea Network

Kenya - Kenyan Women's Network: The Kenyan Women's Network program focuses on the social and economic empowerment of women living in extreme poverty. Pangea works with groups of women known as cooperatives and provides training in leadership, human rights, basic business skills and bookkeeping, personal development, nutrition, hygiene and reproductive health. The majority of the members are small scale traders and farmers engaged in different businesses. In 2024, Pangea, through our trained local trainers and staff provided workshops to 688 women in life and business skills throughout the year and provided business mentorship for 420+ women already in the network, along with revolving funds for small business growth. Pangea served a total of 1,116 women through these efforts in 2024.

U.S. - Young Women's Leadership Challenge (YWLC): YWLC's goal is to empower high school aged young women from diverse backgrounds to be confident, financially literate, globally aware and prepared leaders to achieve their dreams and be changemakers in their communities and beyond. The program provides an opportunity for young women to gain the tools necessary to get them successfully to and through college and into the workplace. This is a year-long program that starts with a summer intensive conference and followed by monthly meetings, mentorship and the design and implementation of their service projects. During 2024, the program was delivered in-person in Houston at Rice University and in Austin at UT Austin. The program had 28 participants finishing their year from January - April and a new year-long cohort of 87 starting in June.

TUDAI and TUKAI - Pangea's Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health program continued its growth of this program by continuing the workshops for 375 girls and beginning to work with a cohort of 375 boys in three western counties of Kenya. The primary goal of the TUDAI and TUKAI programs is to empower adolescents to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health, aiming to reduce vulnerabilities and ensure the protection of their rights. The initiative seeks to instill a shared sense of responsibility within communities to support girls and boys in completing their education and leading successful lives. The project first engaged community leaders and stakeholders to hear their perspectives on the topic and issues affecting young girls and boys and ensure the communities were ready to support these efforts. The team then invited parents and guardians to trainings to share the program and hear from them what they see the issues are and get their support for beginning dialogue around the topic with their children and others. The team continued to work with the trained female Peer Educators and trained 15 male Peer Educators from each of these communities to conduct a series of workshops with 375 boys. Workshops for all 750 were conducted during school breaks in April, August and December of 2024.