Kenya

Bochoroke Village Self Help Group Project

The Bochoroke Village Self Help Group Project targets to benefit a community to promote and protect the social-cultural and human rights, of 4,500 people living in poverty in the village in Kisii, Western Kenya, who are mainly elderly women and children.

This will be achieved through implementing a long-term community development project aimed at developing the capacity of local people by: a) providing them with early childhood development opportunities for children who are too young to walk the five miles to the nearest school and provide informal education and basic skills for women and youth, b) providing them with a basic  dispensary, and c) establishing a social hall for communal and other socio-cultural activities.

The project is owned and managed by the local community with technical support from the local government and Tolerance International UK. The project is managed wholly by volunteer executive committee members and has no paid staff. Labour is provided by the membership and the community. The project will enable the community to address gender biased power relations at household and community level within the economically and politically disadvantaged district. It addresses issues of social, economic, and political marginalisation of the village and addresses the extremes of social-cultural inequity within the community. The development of the village and the wider district has been marginalised by successive governments.

Cheptoo Initiative African Girls Hope Project

The Cheptoo Initiative has been operating since 2002 in the West Pokot district of Kenya, situated on the border with Uganda. The district covers an area of about 9,100 square kilometers with its headquarters in Kapenguria. West Pokot is one of the most marginalized and neglected regions in the country, left undeveloped by successive Kenyan governments going back to the colonial administration. The indigenous population is predominantly pastoralist in an area associated with cattle rustling and feuding between neighbouring ethnic groups.   

BACKGROUND
In pastoralist communities most girls do not go to school; instead they take care of cows, collect water and firewood for cooking, and get married forcefully at an early age soon after circumcision. This project is about giving hope to pastoralist girls and women by establishing an Alternative Rite of Passage and creating a Public Forum for girls to say NO to early marriage and FGC. (Forced Genital Cutting). 

The aim of the project is to empower pastoralist African communities through a human rights-based education program to eradicate harmful cultural practices and adopt sustainable development initiatives.

THE PROGRAMME
The agency delivering the programme is Global Missions Services, a charitable trust based in Kenya. The programme consists of a series of non-formal sessions for pastoralist girls and women, where participants enact situations through theatre, games, artwork, song and the sharing of personal experience. At community level both women and men are involved in a decision making process to eradicate harmful cultural practices in each respective village. Participants learn in community halls or under trees as they analyse, debate, do participatory research in the community, and come to consensus around issues relevant to the community. Through mutual understanding and respect for tribal traditions pastoralist communities learn about human rights and preserving the health and well being of girls and women. 

BENEFITS
Since 2002, 8 communities in West Pokot have abandoned the practice of child marriage and FGC through four Public Declarations, representing over 4% of the 3,000 communities that practiced these customs in 2002. Communities have also collectively decided to forbid marriage before the age of 18 and led successful marches to protect girls who were to leave school to be married.  Examples include communities living in Morpus, Kokwotendwo and Chesta.

SUMMARY
The Cheptoo Initiative has demonstrated that people can make positive decisions when given good information. The success of this project so far can be attributed to the use of a holistic education program ensuring African traditions are reinforced, as well as the utilisation of regional dialects and oral tradition (poetry, songs, theatre, dialogue, etc.). All members of the community must be involved, including religious and traditional leaders. What has been demonstrated is that a human rights approach to ‘Community Capacity Development Education’ is the key to social transformation, together with educated child participants acting as the best agents for social mobilisation and leading the movement for social change.