The county directorate of gender and youth affairs in collaboration with Nyanza Initiative for Girls’ Education and Empowerment (NIGEE) expressed commitment in empowering vulnerable girls and young mothers through donations of sanitary towels in Kisumu West Subcounty.
During the official opening of the event, the County Director of Gender and Youth Affairs Ms Adah Omedi led an open forum discussion with the girls and young women from the 5 wards including Southwest, Northwest, Kisumu North, Kisumu West and Central Kisumu wards to deliberate on the challenges faced by the female gender.
The discussions identified a number of challenges such as lack of economic empowerment, gender-based violence, lack of basic needs due to unemployment that leads to commercial sex and lack of parental skills. The young mothers also expressed fear of being discriminated, threats from the perpetrators and poverty as some of the reasons as to why rape cases were not being reported.
Speaking at the event, Ms Omedi encouraged the group to speak out against gender-based violence by reporting such cases to the paralegals within the community. The County director also urged young women to go for family planning to allow them to raise manageable families. Ms Omedi urged the girls to engage in economic activities by applying for loans to venture into small scale businesses.
The event was graced by the project manager NIGEE, Mr. Alex Ouma with the aim of empowering vulnerable girls and young mothers in the community. NIGEE is a non-governmental organization whose mission is to empower young mothers to be self-reliant through vocational training.
On behalf of the young mothers, Mrs. Millicent Awino Ochieng’ and Mrs. Mollesha Awour Owinga expressed gratitude for the guiding and counselling offered by the county government to empower young girls on their rights.
By Beatrice Akinyi
County Director of Gender and Youth Affairs issuing sanitary towels to the young mothers and girls in Kisumu West Subcounty ( Picture by David Wadulo)
The County directorate of gender and youth in partnership with Plan International and Kisumu Medical Education Trust (KMET) Kenya held a 2-day workshop towards sensitization of the Sub- County administrators, ward administrators and the location administrative chiefs on the Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) that was conducted on 25th and 26th of June, 2019 at Royal City hotel.
In the recent past sexual gender violence has been on the rise within Kisumu County, with Nyando sub-county being on the top list with most cases. It is with that background that the county gender technical committee organized a sensitization workshop targeting administrators who frequently interact with the public and receives the SGBV cases.
The workshop was officially opened by County Minister for Education Dr. John Obiero Ogone. In his remarks, Dr. Ogone acknowledged the support from the development partners and the state agencies in ensuring the success of the workshop. The minister noted that the workshop was timely and necessary in managing Gender based violence cases that are on the rise in the county and that meetings such as this was important in raising awareness against SGBV.
Speaking during the workshop Mr. Joel Okumu, the County gender officer stressed on the need to execute a survivor cantered approach in handling SGBV cases in order to take care of the survivors of the violation.
The objective of the workshop was to sensitize the county administrators to understand SGBV situational cases in Kisumu on collaborative approaches to prevention of SGBV, the budgetary costs of SGBV, strengthening referral pathways supporting survivors of SGBV, legal support to SGBV survivors and the supporting policy framework for SGBV.
The speakers unanimously agreed that the fight against SGBV can only be achieved through the multiagency approach, arguing that collaboration and integrative efforts approach is important in addressing the menace.
The workshop was spearheaded by was the County Directors, Gender and youth affairs Adah Omedi, Communication Atieno Otieno and officials from FIDA, NGEC, KMET, Plan International, State officers and JOOTRH
SGBV Sensitization workshop