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P-FiM Training in Burnt Forest, Uasin Gishu County

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 5th July, 30th August and 24th 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.