Advocacy

Kivulini’s advocates and and lobbies for better laws, polices and structural reforms to prevent violence against women and girls. We focus on building the capacity of local activists and leaders, and use a wide range of media to conduct campaigns in the Lake Victoria Region.

Kivulini prides itself on being closely connected to the communities we serve. Because of these close connections, we play a vital bridging role between the communities and national policy forums. Through exchanging and sharing information, Kivulini brings the voices, issues and priorities from local communities into public debate, and helps to ground public policy in practice by bringing it into the lives of women and men in communities throughout the Lake Victoria Region and Tanzania.

From 2003 to 2007, Kivulini established a broad presence through our active participation in national and regional networks like Policy Forum, Tanzania Education Network, FemAct, and SAHRINGON.

Kivulini also holds a steering position in The Mwanza Policy Initiative Forum. Our main role has been to advocate for the serious consideration of the issue of domestic violence. In addition, Kivulini is the national Focal NGO for the Gender Based Violence Prevention Network – a network of over 150 organizations in the Horn, East and Southern Africa that shares experiences and approaches on preventing violence against women.

Community Mobilisation

Kivulini’s Community Mobilisation Program seeks to raise awareness about the damaging effects of violence against women and girls and to mobilise communities to change longstanding attitudes and behaviors through media campaigns, legal literacy education and participatory events such as dialogues, demonstrations and video sessions.

Our Community Mobilisation work is grounded in the manual Mobilising Communities to Prevent Domestic Violence, A Resource Guide developed by Raising Voices, based in Kampala, Uganda.

Kivulini recognizes that change is a process, and so, to be effective in mobilising communities, we must be aware of the phases of change and then strive to systematically facilitate change. Our efforts to prevent domestic violence are planned along five phases of change, beginning with recognition of where community members are in their current thinking and moves along with them to change attitudes and behaviors that are harmful to women.

Youth Mobilisation

Kivulini’s Youth Program seeks to create a strong voice for young people to actively demand for their rights. Using a solutions-focused approach that empowers young people to solve their own problems, we focus on the prevention of violence against girls, the prevention of drug and alcohol abuse, HIV/AIDS prevention and combating infringement of sexual reproductive health and rights.

Currently we are involved in educating and training youth on the “solutions focused approach”, providing leadership skills training, forming of youth clubs, planning and organizing radio programs, advocating for the rights of child laborers, conducting research as well as organising conferences, sports events and creating youth-based community dialogues.

In 2010-2011, Kivulini is supporting the creation of a youth parliament. On the Day of the African Child in June 2010, a parliament was launched in Mara region. In November of 2010, The Mwanza Youth Parliament will be launched to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our international partner, Terres de Hommes Schweiz. More than 300 youth are expected to participate.

Capacity Building

ivulini’s Capacity Building Program engages a wide variety of community actors on women’s and human rights, domestic violence and the legal system. These actors include health care workers, law enforcement officials, local government staff, ward tribunal members, community leaders, teachers, community groups and civil society organisations.

Kivulini’s experience has shown that the highest rates of domestic violence occur in remote areas of Tanzania where we are unable to serve as effectively being based in Mwanza. However, we can be effective in helping to combat violence in rural areas by strengthening the capacities of civil society organisations operating there.

Since 2008, Kivulini has partnered with civil society organisations (CSOs) in rural areas to combat violence against women. We conduct needs assessments and support CSOs in designing and implementing programs that promote women’s rights. We also provide training in a variety of areas including the impact of violence, legal and social counseling, and various Tanzanian laws related to marriage, inheritance and land.

More information about the CSOs we are currently working can be found in the chart below.

Name of Organisation	District	Description of Activities
Chemchemi	Nyamagana	Prevention of maternal and child mortality through health and nutrition education and community dialogues.
Nguvu Kazi	Nyamagana	Social and legal counseling, awareness raising, community dialogues, training community leaders about commonly violated laws related to marriage, inheritance and land.
Haki Sawa	Ukerewe	Savings and credit schemes, income-generating activities, advocacy, prevention of HIV, mobilizing communities to preserve the environment, social and legal counseling
New Light Children Center	Geita	Improve essential services and provide comprehensive care to orphans and vulnerable children. Facilitate children’s rights, advocate for girl’s rights, monitor child labor practices, HIV/AIDS and female genital mutilation prevention.
ABC Foundation	Musoma	Community training and awareness raising about domestic violence, training on laws and human rights, social and legal counseling, conducting workshops for community leaders and youth.
Nguvu Kazi Kyanyari	Musoma Rural	Support vulnerable children, prevention of female genital mutilation, prevention of early marriage and pregnancies, and prevention of HIV/AIDS.
Yebhe Chikomesye	Musoma Rural	Mobilise women to raise standards of living through small businesses, farming and entrepreneurship. Operate centre for technical training of members, board members and community leaders on laws and domestic violence.
Modern Education and Culture Group	Shinyanga	Training of staff and community leaders on domestic violence and laws that are commonly violated.
Agape AIDS Control Program	Shinyanga	Prevention of HIV and STDs, social and legal counseling of people living with HIV/AIDS, training of community leaders, health care providers and law enforcers to alleviate domestic violence and HIV.
Bandari Ya Matumaini	Singida Rural	Social and legal counseling, domestic violence awareness raising, poverty alleviation through small-scale business and HIV/AIDS prevention through dialogues, seminars, video sessions, media and posters.
Women Saving and Credit Association	Muleba	Domestic violence and human rights training, community education through dialogues, rallies, seminars, video sessions, and media. Advocacy, social and legal counseling to families affected by domestic violence, research on causes of violence.

Monitoring And Evaluation

Kivulini’s Monitoring and Evaluation Program (M&E) aims to monitor the progress of all Kivulini activities and evaluates the impact of our our work.

The M&E program oversees the management information system and information dissemination functions for Kivulini. This includes developing or updating performance monitoring plans, data collection and analysis to determine progress in achieving results, ensuring adherence of staff and consultants to research protocols and processes, ensuring timely submission of donor and corporate level reports, providing technical assistance to develop monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and overseeing identification and synthesis of best practices and lessons learned from all project activities.

Child Domestic Workers Project

The Child Domstic Workers Project was adopted in response to the growing number of child domestic workers (CDWs) seeking help from Kivulini’s legal aid clinic. Children and young people reported being denied wages, being physically or sexually harassed, and deprived of their property.

In partnership with Anti-Slavery International, Kivulini is committed to inspiring and supporting community leaders to prevent domestic violence in areas of employment where young people, especially girls, are survivors.

The goal of the Child Domestic Workers Project is to end human rights violations of domestic workers under the age of 18 years and to promote the rights of domestic workers in general.

Project Objectives

Support direct assistance to CDWs through small grants to improve living conditions
Develop tools and gather data on health impacts, especially the psychosocial health of CDWs to inform local interventions, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of existing interventions
Pursue advocacy work on the protection of CDWs and promotion of CDW rights to achieve legislative reform
Achieve all objectives in partnership with CDWs emphasizing CDW empowerment and self-development.

(Not translated)