Women and girls in Taruwes Village, Mashuru in Kajiado East celebrate the visit of FODDAJ Director, Nancy Sitima, and Director of Adult Education, Mercy Niriri @FODDAJ
by Nancy Sitima, Executive Director, FODDAJ
The scorching sun on the plains of Kenya’s Kajiado County is unforgiving, as teenage girls and young women trek for miles across dusty, rugged and treacherous plains in search of water and firewood. Though visibly exhausted, the girls clad in Maasai shuka (cloth wrapper) cannot give up until they get water for their livestock and for domestic use. This is the plight of many girls and women in counties affected by the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa.
The risks to girls’ personal safety includes rape and even attacks from wild animals. With one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country, many girls in Kajiado have dropped out of school because of the gendered burden of care, such as caring for children, the sick and the elderly, walking long distances in search for water and herding cattle. Disasters like droughts see an increase in migration as households seek food and pasture for their livestock. This disrupts basic services such as access to healthcare and reproductive health services. It also pushes many households to engage in forced or child marriage, and labour trafficking of women and girls. Women and girls are at a higher risk of gender-based violence during and in the aftermath of the disaster and have additional health and hygiene needs resulting from pregnancy, breastfeeding and managing menstrual hygiene.
With one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country, many girls in Kajiado have dropped out of school because of the gendered burden of care
The Forum for Women in Development, Democracy and Justice (FODDAJ) is on the frontline of providing humanitarian relief, providing psychosocial support, emergency food distribution, community education and outreach. We work with communities to prevent the risks of violence faced by women and girls, and to ensure their needs are heard and met in emergency responses.
Our locally rooted approach and network of community health workers allowed us to rapidly provide relief and outreach to 10 community units in the vast Kajiado County within the first two months of the announcement of a climate disaster by the County Government.
Local organisations like FODDAJ are not just the 'first responders' but also the 'sustained responders' in crisis-affected communities, yet they often face financial barriers that hinder their full engagement in the humanitarian sector.
As the crisis intensifies, we’re deepening the call for establishing equitable and equal partnerships that empower local communities to lead ways of thinking, working on and adapting good practice such as equal partnerships approaches, linkages to networks, donor referrals, mentoring and peer exchanges.
As members of NEAR, FODDAJ collaborates with other members at the local, national and regional levels to create new pathways for collective action. As a local actor we are getting bolder in the way we demand and negotiate on decisions made about us. We are now more assertive in the way we can negotiate with our partners and demand for equality and respect in partnership approaches. We have a track record and collective memory about disasters to share; we have appropriate contextual knowledge, oversight capacities, vast experience, grassroots presence, community linkages and we are trusted by communities we serve.