Women become their own leaders by holding decision makers accountable

Low participation in public policy issues by women and other vulnerable groups in decision making and community initiatives often stands in the way of holding the development agenda in their hands and ensuring that their priority needs are met. However, armed with a score card women in Gatsibo District in Rwanda are organizing their communities and have become their own leaders by holding decision makers accountable. This has made them a formidable force for change in their communities.

Under the Public Policy Information Monitoring and Advocacy project (PPIMA) in the district, women community mobilizers, or animators, spearhead identification of needs in their communities and inform other community members. This marks the beginning of an engagement process that agrees on the needs to be addressed with the involvement of decision makers and service providers.

By employing the concept of the score card, the communities identify their pressing issues directly affecting them, whether in health, education, agriculture and other sectors, in relation to governance and service provision.

The score card is a tool in which the women and their communities decide on specific service indicators to assist them track the pace of addressing their needs. Based on this they give scores and the reasons for the scores on the progress made by the decision makers and/or service providers. The scores are then analyzed and ranked to identify the gaps, forming the basis in planning how to address them.

Women remain among the most marginalized, along with the youth, people living with disabilities and the historically marginalized peoples. However, women have often suffered the “double tragedy” of not only being women, but at the same time being marginalized as youth or people living with disabilities, and in other marginalized groups.

Women in Gatsibo District spearhead the identification of service delivery issues in their communities paying special attention on the marginalized groups to ensure their participation. This has helped them articulate the issues in all their dimensions in the community.

The PPIMA project was initiated in 2009 to respond to the issues related to governance, service delivery, accountability and community participation at all levels of development programming at the decentralized levels. The communities work in collaboration with service providers where they agree on issues and come up with solutions, including agreeing on issues to be included at the district and national levels as development priorities.

The process has proved empowering as it directly places the development agenda on the hands of the women and their communities based on their needs and issues.

The PPIMA project is a collaboration between RWN  and the Norwegian People’s Aid and is being implemented in 40 villages in Gatsibo District.

Rwanda Women's Network (RWN) is one of the four partner institutes of the African Centers of Excellence (ACE) for Women's Leadership program run by the Institute of International Education (IIE) , Ethiopia Office.

For more on IIE , ACE or RWN please follow the links below.

 www.iie.org/

www.iie.org/en/Programs/ACE-for-Womens-Leadership, 

www.rwandawomennetwork.org

I’M …….MY SISTER’S SISTER

I remember being very vocal in airing my opinions even from a tender age.  Having been brought up in a family of all girls, I remember refusing to conform to girlish or boyish things, especially in school. I had never been told that I cannot do this or that at home because I am a girl and I vehemently refused to be defined solely by my gender in school too. This contrast in my socialization process at home and in school was undeniably my genesis into feminist leadership.

My name is Catherine Wambui Kiama. I was born 25 years ago; raised and educated in the capital city of Nairobi. I hold a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of London. I am not sure at what point in life I decided to study law but my family probably always knew that was meant to be my destiny. After completing my O level education, it dawned on me that our educational process, granted teaches us things that are of paramount importance but students leave school with good transcripts but with zero life skills. As a result, many young O- level leavers get into quite a messy tangle especially in the duration leading up to the release of their results. Many of the young girls who I have talked too often tell me that they did not have the necessary information to protect themselves and make informed decisions. I decided at this point that I needed to do something. Sex education is part of the 8-4-4 curriculum but after conducting a survey in several schools in Nairobi and its outskirts, I quickly realized that the same is not implemented. Either our teachers are too shy to discuss this and our parents leave the whole burden to the schools and religious institutions would just rather not touch this subject altogether.

 ‘Sisterhood’ was born out of these needs to provide young teenage girls with essential life skills. Sisterhood is a mentorship program that aims to encourage, inspire and support sisters to rise to the challenge and be the best they imagine themselves to be. Sisterhood tries to be a bridge that safely transports these impressionable young teens to be responsible adults. The program runs in high schools in Nairobi and its environs and adopts a curriculum based on the needs assessment of the school and the students. Core topics that are always addressed include self-esteem, HIV & AIDS and goal setting. The program also tries to hold educational fairs where the students can get guidance and career advice especially before they choose what major units to take up in their final years of study. The program is run on a pro-bono basis and an effective way of inspiring the girls is to bring women who grew up in the same locality and who may have even attended the same schools and have excelled in their respective fields. This I have noted is the best approach to take as the girls and the mentors can identify with each other. Within Nairobi, “Sisterhood” deliberately targets slums and informal settlements where this information is much more essential. Quite recently Sisterhood has started a similar program for the boy child and has incorporated mixed secondary schools into the target populous.

Based on the teenage empowerment program, I had the privilege of attending the YWLI feminist leadership training which a six month course. Based on the theme of the Institute; ‘My personal is political my power to influence change’ the most humbling thing I was constantly reminded of was that first of all I need to take care of myself to be able to take care of others, This necessarily means that I have to take care of both my physical and spiritual, and mental self. It was insightful to realize that as a young woman most if not all of my decisions may have already been made for me by a political class. It is with this realization that I am embracing my personal as political and using this to air the grievances of both women and young girls and calling for women to rise up and let their voices be heard. During the fellowship, I had the honor of being indulged by remarkable women leaders who have left lasting foot prints in the fight for gender parity in Kenya and beyond. It was also truly comforting to form solidarity unions with other young women leaders who are doing remarkable things to make a better world for future generations. The greatest lessons I took with me from the institute was probably that the journey to self realization and to make an impact however small start with me and my first small steps….

The institute equipped me with the skills that I need to mentor the teenage girls and boys and to embrace my personal as political and use this understanding as my power to influence change Following the Institute, Sisterhood is formally undergoing registration and aims to continue running mentorship programs for both girls and boys within Kenya and hopefully on day beyond that geographical confine…

Young Women's Leadership Institute (YWLI) is one of the four partner institutes of the African Centers of Excellence (ACE) for Women's Leadership program run by the Institute of International Education (IIE) , Ethiopia Office.

For more on IIE , ACE or YWLI please follow the links below.
www.iie.org/
www.iie.org/en/Programs/ACE-for-Womens-Leadership, 
www.ywli.org 

Lina Zedriga Waru Abuku a lawyer and an expert in “women, peace, and security.”

We bring you a story of one very charming and courageous  alumni; Lina Zedriga who has beaten various odds of life but refuses to be silenced and has ventured to speak for women’s peace and security.

Who is Lina?

Born in 1961 to Magdalene and Karlo Abuku Lina was the third last and only girl. Which also was the case as she was still the only girl in her class at PLE and emerging the best, she went to Sacred Heart Girls Secondary School Gulu. She married in 1982, and is mother to 5 children.  Currently the Director Women Peace and Security (RACI), Lina has served in various capacities right from being a teacher to Magistrate. She is a very ardent advocate of UN SCR 1325 on Women Peace and Security,  a passion that has driven her into becoming an International; Trainer of Trainers, Mediator, Mobilizer, Strategist, and Mentor.

Since the disappearance of husband, an opposition politician 12 years ago ( August 2001), she is the sole parent to five  children plus three she adopted. She went from being a magistrate to a war widow but she refuses to be called a “victim.”  And says “We are the stakeholders. Nothing about us without us.”

 An experienced leader in peace and conflict resolution matters; Lina has been the Director of Women Peace and Security Program aimed at empowering women for durable peace and reconciliation since 2011.  With one of her distinguished experiences being the staging of a media and grassroots campaign to get women into the negotiations for the Juba Peace Talks leading to a four-day march into areas of war and rape, and then flying into Juba where she delivered a peace torch to the Chief Mediator  in the LRA /Gov of Uganda, H.E Dr. Riek Machar. She has consulted widely both nationally and internationally including consultation for the ICAN/MIT carried in a report “What the Women Say on UN SCR” http://www.icanpeacework.org/unscr1325caseassessment/2010. She recently participated in high panel presentation at the UN SCR New York among which she was on a panel with Mary Robinson the UN SC Secretary Generals Representative on the ICGLR Frame work of Hope aimed at bringing peace in the DRC.

Lina shares a light moment with Mary Robinson

In 2005 while serving as the Program Adviser to Northern Uganda Peace Initiatives, she designed the Women in Peace Building and Reconciliation Program, which included bringing together 300 internally displaced women and other Northern Ugandans to advance peace in the region. And prior to that she was Associate Director of the Center for Conflict Management and Peace Studies at Gulu University, where she coordinated community outreach programs, led research, and helped develop a post-graduate diploma in conflict management and peace studies.

She holds a master’s degree in human rights, a law degree, and a certificate of laws from Makerere University. She is a member of numerous professional associations, including the Network of African Peace Builders, the African Judicial Network

Sharing her AWLI Experience

I remember very vividly the application process in 2006; I was actually given an exception rule under the age bracket. I was working in Northern Uganda then, the whole process of the AWLI was a complete turn of events and my life’s journey just re-started. I got to put on a certain unique lens of being a driver of my destiny, something within me that has closed in on me just gave way from the inside, I was re-newed; re-born. Being very much older among the participants was a blessing to me, the Africa wide experience of women’s issues from exclusion, to being targeted as battle fields with rape and yet we continue to keep together the social fabriq.

I was determined to embrace this challenge and start an initiative that would not add women but target them as primary stakeholders, it had to be grassroots, peace and security of the person premised on the adage that Prof Sylvia Tamale had shared “The Personal is Political” Hence I set to create a community of practice where women were not considered victims but critical stakeholders and where sustainable peace ultimately rests on their full participation at all negotiation tables and implementation of outcomes of such negotiations be it Peace Negotiations, Commercial negotiations, family name it. Secondly I had not come to meet any woman mediator so I was convinced that we needed to have women mediators.

For me the unique aspects of the AWLI were the selection of the participants who were practicing women’s rights defenders, social entrepreneurs, who had all personal experiences that were so enriching. Secondly the mode of delivery of the training was centered on experiential learning, the blatant honesty.

We created a network across the Continent that was visionary we went out as determined agents of change armed with the “tools” and confidence. The AWLI helped to determine one thing I could die for, or work for no pay and yet get full satisfaction and then conceived RACI, planned how it would operate, target groups especially how we would invade the peace process in Juba creating women actors.

Her advice for sustained Advocacy of issues affecting women

We should move from organizing “events” to creating a community of practice that is socially active and politically literate grounded from the grassroots to the grass tops.

A glance into her next 10 years

Lina aspires to become an Icon of Women Peace and Security influencing decisions at the AU, UN SC and preparing to retire from active activism as there will be younger advocates in place at all levels

Long after we are gone…

She wants to be remembered for “UN SCR 1325 on Women Peace and Security Monger, Advocate, Defender”

AKina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) is one of the four partner institutes of the African Centers of Excellence (ACE) for Women's Leadership program run by the Institute of International Education (IIE) , Ethiopia Office.

For more on IIE , ACE or AMwA please follow the links below.
www.iie.org/
www.iie.org/en/Programs/ACE-for-Womens-Leadership, 

www.akinamamawaafrika.org/