Our Programs

Community Peacebuilding

Sustainable development cannot be achieved in the absence of peace and lasting peace can only be realized through the involvement of all actors within the society. In keeping with CEEC’s vision, this program strives to build communities’ capacities to effectively participate in peace processes. It also aims at promoting the participation of all members of the society, particularly women and youth who are normally locked out of mainstream peace processes. This comes from CEEC’s belief that lasting solutions are those that come from the communities themselves and those that do not exclude sections of the society.

Objectives

  • To promote all inclusive and gender sensitive peace processes for realization of sustainable peace and development.
  • To enhance communities’ capacities to use the philosophy, principles and practice of gender sensitive active nonviolence as a tool for social change.
  • To promote peaceful coexistence and management of diversity among different communities and sectors.
  • To inform legal and policy reform through research, documentation and advocacy on peacebuilding and conflict transformation.

Gender and Human Rights

Kenya is a signatory to and has ratified the main International and Regional Treaties and Conventions that guarantee civil liberties. The Kenya Constitution has progressive human rights provisions with an emphasis on gender equality and equity. However the rights provided for will remain mere provisions on paper if communities are not empowered to claim them. This program aims at building the capacity of communities on gender and human rights issues enabling them to stand up against violations for a just and peaceful society.

Objectives

  • To equip communities with knowledge, information and skills in the areas of gender, law and human rights for the promotion of gender equality and protection of human rights in communities.
  • To enhance the capacity of communities to access justice through legal awareness, referrals and self representation skills.
  • To contribute towards realization of economic rights through skills building and linkages to financial opportunities.

Leadership and Good Governance

There is a clear link between bad governance/poor leadership and most of the social problems in the society which include gender based violence, marginalization and exclusion of women and youth, unemployment and high crime rates. Since the advent of multi- party politics, Kenya has made major democratic strides. The long struggle for constitutional reform culminated in a very progressive Constitution which was promulgated in August 2010. Despite this, the citizenry is to a large extent ignorant of their civic rights and duties and are apathetic towards political leadership. This translates into bad leadership choices, poor governance and failure to hold leaders to account.

Objectives

  • To enhance communities’ participation, particularly youth and women in leadership and governance/ through capacity building.
  • To strengthen communities’ capacity to exercise their democratic right of putting in place transformative leadership and demanding transparence and accountability from their leaders.
  • To stimulate communities to engage in advocacy for laws, policies and practices that foster good governance.

Positive Masculinities

There is undisputable evidence the world over that men are the main perpetrators of violence and women are more often than not on the receiving end whether it is violence perpetrated in the private sphere or in settings of war or civil unrest. This masculinization of violence is wrongly assumed to be natural while the fact is that masculine and feminine roles are more socially and culturally prescribed rather than biologically determined. Unfortunately, both male and female socialization has traditionally glorified aggressive masculinity and accepted violence as a normal expression of manhood.It is in view of this that this program specifically targets men with the aim of helping them interrogate the connection between negative masculinity and violence with a view to bringing about a paradigm shift from negative to positive masculinities for social transformation.

Objectives

  • To build the capacity of communities to embrace positive masculinities as a way of combating violence in both private and public spheres.
  • To equip men with skills to mobilize fellow men for nonviolence social change and gender equality within communities.
  • To build a pool of male allies committed to the promotion of gender justice and advocacy against violence.