Two years ago, a 16-year-old student at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, Ziyaan Virji, turned his project – Affordable and Accessible Sanitation for Women (AASW) -into an internationally-recognized organization. This project would go on to receive major international recognition including the Diana Award for going above and beyond his everyday life to create and sustain positive change. The Diana Award, which celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year, is considered one of the highest accolades for social action or humanitarian efforts that a young person can receive.

Ziyaan has since partnered with several organizations to improve the access to sanitary health.   Through Operation Period, the organizations has helped over 1,000 girls to acquire access to menstrual hygiene across six different countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Pakistan, India, Nigeria and the UAE.

Since 2014, May 28th has been recognized as Menstrual Hygiene Day, a day to bring awareness to menstrual inequity.

International

On Sunday, May 10th, statistics from the WorldOmeter showed that New York state had recorded 41 fatalities in 24 hours, down from a high of almost two thousand deaths in Mid April. This was a significant drop in deaths with total US fatalities dropping to below a thousand.

This is a similar drop being recorded all over the world with record low levels being recorded in European hotspots of Italy, France, Spain, and United Kingdown with figures almost going to double digits. It is expected that the effects of the disease might not be felt in a few months.

However, as global figures decline, the same can not be said of Africa which has since a significant rise, blatant disobeying containment measures, and rise of unscientific measures to curb the disease. According to Africa CDC, the AU backed entity, there are 63,293 confirmed cases spread across the continent with 2,290 …

“It’s getting better by the day,” said Minal Shah, who has two children that attend the Academy. “It took us a few days, in the beginning, to settle with the new routines and now it’s become a new way of learning for all of us.”

Most Academy parents have found that the best way they can help their child during online learning is to help them organise their time wisely, provide a good workspace and be there for them for moral support.

“We have been providing a quiet and conducive study location for our child,” said Colin Williams, a parent of an Academy student. “Lots of hugs and emotional support are also included, along with additional art supplies, books, and study materials. We’re also answering any questions our daughter may have and we help her with researching.”

With schools being shut, daily routines have become less structured. This has encouraged …

M-TIBA, the health financing technology platform based in Kenya and the Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF) have announced a new SMS-based service to help the security agencies identify essential healthcare service workers in the country. This is in response to these workers facing travel restrictions during curfew hours and movements into or out of counties with restricted movements. Security personnel is also increasingly concerned about the authenticity of paper-based passes being used to identify essential service providers.

M-TIBA has developed a verification platform for security officers to check that people are healthcare workers providing essential services. They can do this by sending a free SMS with an ID number of the healthcare worker to 20253. They will receive a confirmation message from M-TIBA authenticating the ID – and vehicle registration details, when available.

This will help KHF members, who are providers of gazetted essential services, to carry on with their official …

Infections in Africa have been steadily rising after initial indications had shown the continent was not affected by Coronavirus compared to other regions. What started with a few cases in Nigeria and Egypt has risen to over 500 cases and a dozen deaths.

Now, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says there could be more cases that what is officially documented. The explanation according to Ethiopian born and head of WHO is that the tests being conducted by the local governments are not as robust.

“I think Africa should wake up. My continent should wake up,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

WHO reports that there are over slightly over 591 coronavirus patients in Africa and the numbers are rising each day.  Egypt reported the largest number of positive cases (196), followed by South Africa (116), Algeria (72), Morocco (49), Senegal (31), Burkina Faso (20), Cameroon (10), Rwanda (8), Democratic Republic …

Economists define a recession as a subdued growth that lasts at least six months and goes for another 18 months while depression can last up to a decade. The global economy was already heading to a recession even before the outbreak and spread of COVID-19.

What has followed is global market players and governments pumping millions of dollars to contain the spread of the virus that has Wuhan city and its epicenter. The US and Europe have already announced setting up of special kitty to treat, contain and mitigate the effects of the virus both as a disease as well as the economic heat that comes with the disease.

China, the second-largest economy in the world and Italy- Europe’s third-largest economy and 8th globally- have been severely affected by cities like Rome remaining ghost-towns as economic and commercial activities come to a halt. There is a growing fear that the …