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Kenya is a country of diversity ranging from ethnic to gender, language, class, political affiliation, and religion among others. Unfortunately, conflicts along diversity fault lines are far too common due to failure to embrace and manage our differences. In almost all election years, ethno-political violence rears its ugly head, leaving in its wake a wave of death, destruction and highly polarized communities. Unequal gender relations have resulted in negative and harmful masculinities and femininities that normalize violence as a way of dealing with conflict. Religious intolerance has led to profiling of and general mistrust of some communities as well as individuals professing certain faiths. In addition, Kenya is increasingly becoming a country of “haves and have nots” thus generating mutual mistrust and resentment across the divide.  This is especially the case in urban informal settlements and low-income areas. These areas are not only highly cosmopolitan but they are also a clear manifestation of social and economic inequality. Therefore, they become easy hot spots of violence that is based on manipulation of diversity as well as capitalization of feelings of exclusion and marginalization. It is against this background that CEEC with the support of GIZ-CPS, is implementing a project that seeks to promote respect for diversity among youth in five informal settlements in Nairobi namely Kibra, Korogocho, Mathare, Dandora and Kawangware.   The project kicked off with a 3 days’ training, which was held from 14^th to 16^th April 2019. The training sought to strengthen the capacity of youth to promote cohesion building through recognizing, resisting and condemning manipulation of diversity. This is the message that the trainees were expected to take to their peers through a series of community conversations and radio talk shows.

CEEC has since 2014 been implementing gender based violence prevention and response as well as governance projects in Burnt Forest, Uasin Gishu County with support from GIZ-CPS. To avoid the communities’ dependence and enhance the sustainability of the work that CEEC has done, a People First Impact Method (P-FiM) http://p-fim.org/  training for 25 community members from the target area was conducted in March 2018 by CPS-GIZ in conjunction with CEEC. Part of the training involved facilitation of community conversations for eight groups of community members (Village Elders, People Living with Disabilities, Youth, Single Mothers, Farmers, Religious Leaders, Business Community and Boda Boda Operators). After the training, GIZ-CPS supported CEEC to implement P-FiM follow up activities between July and October 2018. The trainees went through refresher training in July 2018 after which they conducted three sets of follow up community conversations on 5^th July, 30^th August and 24^th October respectively. The conversations were facilitated by the 25 P-FiM trainees who were organized in teams of three (Facilitator, Rapporteur and Observer). All sets of community conversations were conducted with the same set of participants and they sought to identify pertinent issues within the community, prioritize them and generate home grown solutions to address them. Some of the challenges that the community decided to address were high cost of farm inputs, low prices of maize, illicit brews, poor road networks and youth idleness/unemployment. Consequently, they initiated the following interventions in response to the identified challenges:

• New farming methods (e.g. Poultry, Dairy, Horticultural etc.), table banking as well as getting experts on alternative farming methods.
• Community sensitization on illicit brews
• Generating solutions to some of the issues that were negatively affecting them e.g. Coming together to unclog the drainage system and conducting minor repairs on some of the impassable roads and bridges instead of waiting for the government to do it.
• The youth group formed a football club and also started an income generating project. From the contributions they were making, they started a poultry farming project and bought a motor bike to help them run the project more effectively.
• The Single Mothers Group started table banking as well as a Poultry farming project.
• People Living with Disabilities Group had started making monthly contributions to start an income generating activity. They were also waiting for their certificate of registration to enable them approach the County Government for support.
• The Boda Boda Group had started making monthly contributions to boost their business. They were planning to ensure that all members got the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) card and also that they were all trained and had licences.

The P-FiM trainers also registered a community self- help group to assist them in carrying out their activities in a more structured manner as well enable them to access government funds to address community challenges.

On 29^th October 2018, CEEC with support from GIZ-CPS launched a handbook titled; Promoting Gender Inclusive Governance: A Handbook for Women Members of County Assembly at the Emory Hotel in Nairobi. The launch brought together Women MCA’s from Muranga, Kiambu, Nairobi, Makueni, Kirinyaga and Baringo Counties. The handbook is a simplified guide for women MCAs on how to effectively discharge their mandate of representation, legislation and oversight. It provides general information on County Assembly procedures as well as strategies that Women MCAs can use to promote gender equity and equality. It also provides tips on how to build social and political capital within and outside the assemblies. The handbook aims at strengthening the quality of leadership by women MCAs, hopefully leading to increased chances of election or re-election. Increased numbers of women leaders and improved quality of the leadership they provide would ultimately contribute to gender inclusive in governance.

With the support of GIZ-CPS, CEEC implemented the project Building the Capacity of Women MCAs from Nairobi and Kiambu Counties to Promote Gender Inclusive Governance between June and October 2018. The activities under this project were; a series of three days’ trainings between June and July 2018 for a total of 38 women MCA’s, networking meeting in August 2018, monitoring the two County Assemblies’ Hansards, development of a Women MCAs Handbook as well as launch of the Handbook which took place in October 2018 alongside project evaluation.  The twin objective of the project was to increase the capacity of Women MCA’s to discharge their mandate of representation, legislation and oversight as well as  advancing women political leadership through increased visibility in their respective wards through community engagement. In a male dominated political structure, women MCA’s face challenges such as inadequate capacity to discharge their mandate, lack of support from some male colleagues, women not supporting each other, weak Women Caucuses, financial constraints within the Women Caucuses and women giving in to “Divide and Rule” tactics from male colleagues.

The training equipped the women MCAs with knowledge and skills to build social and political capital within and outside the Assemblies. As a result of the training the MCAs actively participated in debates, moved bills and tabled motions in their respective County Assemblies. This was confirmed by a review of the Hansard from both Nairobi and Kiambu Counties as well as the project evaluation. Notable success stories reported included, moving a motion on equipping County residents with first aid skills, issuing statements on county matters, contributing to the budgeting process, integrating a gender perspective into house proceedings notably during a motion on the nomination of a woman as CEC for Health in Kiambu County and supporting a motion for nomination of a woman as a member of the Speakers Panel in Nairobi County. At the community level, the trained Women MCAs understood that they have a right to serve residents of their wards even if they are nominated and not elected. Using the skills they acquired, they therefore started lobbying for support from their elected colleagues as well as the executive. Examples of projects they initiated in their wards are; supporting the elderly, orphaned children and partnering with well-wishers in the private sector to donate school supplies like books and uniforms to needy children. Feedback from the trained Women MCAs indicated that their improved capacity as a result of the project had enabled them to better articulate gender issues (generally) and women’s issues (specifically).

Overall, the Women MCAs reported to have gained confidence to discharge their duties and a new resolve to forge on. Some who wanted to give up on a political career decided to not only stay the course but also aim at higher offices in 2022. The legislators attributed these positive outcomes to the knowledge and skills they acquired from the project.