TETEA

Together Empowering society To Eliminate the Abuse of women and children in Kenya

Description

TETEA (“Let’s protect” in Kiswahili) is a 3-year project aiming to contribute to reducing violence against children (VAC) and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Kenya.
It’s co-funded by the European Union, implemented in 3 counties of Kenya (Kakamega, Nakuru and Tana River), by a consortium of 5 partners with strong experience in prevention and response to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) and Violence Against Children (VAC).
This intervention focuses on 3 types of violence highly spread in the target counties: sexual violence and teenage pregnancies, child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). It was designed based on a deep analysis of the prevalence and drivers of SGBV and VAC in the targeted counties, which includes national and county surveys, results from CISP assessments and the knowledge of the consortium from long-standing experience the targeted counties.

The intervention strategy includes both the prevention and response components and actively involves victims, vulnerable groups (children and women), agents of change and perpetrators of violence. To achieve its goal, the project adopts a 4-Level Approachaimed to:

Civil Society level: strengthen local CSOs’ ability to effectively intervene in the prevention of SGBV and VAC.
Institutional level: improve the capacity of government service providers in terms of quality of the assistance and referral among services for women and girls.
Community level: facilitate a community-led process to identify and tackle gender discriminatory social norms, attitudes and practices that justify Violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Individual level: empower young girls/boys to proactive engage in promoting gender equality behaviours.

SDGs

OBJECTIVES

The overall objective of the action is to contribute to the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence in Kenya.

Activities

Facilitate the establishment and/or support to child right clubs, teenage mother groups and youth groups, through training and mentorship of teachers, community volunteers, group leaders and members and financial support to implement their action plan. These groups meet regularly (weekly or bi-monthly) to discuss about their rights and responsibilities, gender equality, violence against children and women, life skills and how they can become leaders of change (such as peer educators and advocacy leaders). The participatory and artistic methods together with the topics of discussion are meant to enhance participants’ self-awareness, self-confidence, and self-expression. The empowered children and youth will therefore not only be more capable to lead their life, but also to influence the beliefs and behaviours of other peers.
Facilitate the establishment and support to community-led-dialogue (CLD) groups, through training and mentorship of group facilitators and members and financial support to implement their action plan. The CLD groups are guided by trained community facilitators through an empowerment process of 26 bi-weekly meetings where violence against children and women are discussed in terms of practices, and beliefs and social norms justifying them in the target communities. The groups therefore identify positive social norms that protect women and children based on which they organize sensitisation campaigns to reach other community members, including potential perpetrators of violence.
Facilitate the capacity development of service providers in child protection and GBV case management, especially police officers, judiciary officers and local administrators, who are not specialised in CP and GBV and play a key role in case management.
Enhance coordination among child protection and GBV actors for referral of cases. This is achieved through the establishment of case management committees at sub-county level under the leadership of the Kenya Government and the establishment and promotion of a service provider online referral system called SPMS.
Impact evaluation of the intervention through the partnership with John Hopkins University.

Output and results

Empowered young boys and girls in Tana River, Kakamega and Nakuru Counties to recognize the harmful drivers of SGBV and FGM occurring in their communities and become leaders of change among their peers.
Enhanced community-led preventive initiatives that challenge harmful norms justifying SGBV and VAC and promoting protective attitudes, beliefs and behaviour in the targeted Counties.
Strengthened the quality, inclusiveness and coordination of community and institutional response mechanisms to SGBV and VAC in the targeted Counties.

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