Programs Area
- Constitutional & Rule of Law Education Program.
- Good Governance & Accountability Program.
- Justice, Human Rights, Disability & Gender Parity Advocacy Program.
- Land, Environmental Conservation & Sustainability Program.
JUSTICE
HUMANITY
DIGNITY
Programmes
JUHUDI works to empower marginalized communities in Kenya in order to end injustice, poverty and create opportunities for all. The Organization was founded in 2010 and since then it has continued to empower marginalized communities in Kenya in order to end injustice, poverty and create opportunities for all.
Constitutional & Rule Of Law Education Program
Under this program area, JUHUDI entrenches constitutional order in all aspects of people’s lives as well as promoting a new way of thinking that corresponds with Kenyan laws and ensures that all social, economic and political processes are guided by constitutionalism and rule of law.
Good Governance Program
JUHUDI works to give citizens the tools to demand accountability from their leaders, including making information available at all levels of decision-making and ensuring proper participation in decision making processes.
The devolved governance structure of Kenya under the constitution is an opportunity to increase vigilance by all citizens to ensure that resources are shared fairly and equitably. JUHUDI plays a key role in this area, due to experience in social accountability and devolved system of governance.
Justice, Human Rights, Disability & Gender Parity Advocacy Program
Under this program JUHUDI advocates for the promotion, respect and protection of human rights targeting the following areas of focus and strategic results:
- Enhanced protection against human rights violations.
- Increased demand by communities and vulnerable populations for respect and protection of their human rights.
- Improved service delivery systems that protect and promote human rights that are accessible to all including vulnerable populations.
JUHUDI’s activities under this program include: .
- Facilitating access to justice in communities through working with cultural structures for community based alternative dispute resolution.
- Building capacity on ethical and human rights issues .
- Popularizing the rights based approach to programming and advocating for rights based policies nationally, regionally and globally.
This program area will see JUHUDI working with national institutions and community based groups. With the Kenyan constitutional bill of rights as a guide, the objective is to bring women, youths and disabled people to the forefront of development, ensuring there is their input in decision-making.
Land, Environmental Conservation & Sustainable Program
Land and natural resources have been a cause of major conflict and human rights violations in Kenya. JUHUDI seeks to create a platform where the authorities work hand in hand with community to embrace reforms in the land sector and promote its fair use as well promote respect for and enhance the protection of Environmental Defenders working on land and environmental issues.
Current Ongoing Projects
As part of JUHUDI’s lasting contribution to capacity building and skills transfer in Kenya, the organization is currently implementing a project dubbed Towards Peace in Tana River County. It conducts community meetings, reconciliation forums and training in dialogue facilitation. The aim is to establish a network of key individuals who will form a network of practitioners working on inter and intra-community reconciliation in Tana River County.
The next project is Environmental Conservation, Human Rights and Land Use Management Project in Kasigau Taita Taveta County. Here we are highlighting hot spots for violence targeting environmental defenders and other forms of repression for vigilance, document links between corrupt practices reprisals and development finance, prepare briefings on reprisals and development projects as well as conducting stakeholders training of project affected peoples (PAPs) on technical and soft skills, focusing in areas like corporate responsibility to be respected, access to remedy, corporate sustainability due diligence, natural resource benefit sharing, grievance redress mechanisms, protection of human rights defenders, trends of human rights defenders, responsibilities of business in terms of HRDs, building trust, cohesiveness, governance, internal management, conflict resolution and communication.
Another ongoing project is Widows Rights are Human Rights in Tana River County.The immediate project objective is widows supported by the project achieve a secure and enhanced income and effectively participate and contribute to decision-making process in domestic and public spheres. Throughout our work and lessons learnt, JUHUDI identified Tana River County to be used as a pilot project targeting 1,000 widows. The feeling was that there is no group more affected by the sin of omission than widows. They are painfully absent from the statistics of many developing countries and are rarely mentioned in the multiple numerous sample reports on women’s education, health, poverty, development or human rights published in many years yet they occupy a significant percentage of the total population in our area of work.
There has also been a growing evidence of widow’s vulnerability in their socio-economic and psychological statuses and are subject to harsh patriarchal customary and religious laws as well as confront all kinds of discrimination. Many also suffer from exploitation, abuse, violence and stigmatization. This was the reason why JUHUDI felt that an urgent call for attention at all levels of society is needed, given the extent and severity of the challenges widows’ experience. This urgency is constantly increased by the fact that there is an increasing number of widows in Tana River County every single day.
This extreme plight of widows in Kenya is yet to be researched deeply, documented and squarely addressed by civil society organizations committed to safeguard and fight for the rights of women. There is a serious gap and need for comprehensive research that needs to be done concerning widows’ statuses in terms of health and finances not leaving behind advocating for their rights and increasing their participation (that is unrestricted by culture or social status) in politics, decision making processes, sports, arts, music and among others. To sum it up the major problems faced by marginalized widows in Tana River County includes:
- High levels of unemployment and income insecurity.
- Inadequate access and participation in economic, political and social processes.
- Poor access to credit and other financial institutions.
- Social issues – exploitation, GBV, stigmatization and neglect.
- Lack of respect at the family and community level The need to empower and help the widows in Tana River County access justice, gain skill that will bring income which will in turn create positive direct impact on their livelihoods, participate in decision making processes, and be recognized among different systems in the county and Kenya at large is wanting.
Recently Concluded Projects
JUHUDI has implemented a project dubbed supporting peaceful and fair elections at the coast, which entailed carrying out civic education in Lamu County. The main aim of the project was to engage citizens in discussions around how best to hold peaceful political and electoral processes in the region, including improving understanding of the devolution process. JUHUDI organized weekly village-based informal forums on the constitution of Kenya and its provisions for devolution and elections in Lamu County. It also organized cultural events during the voter registration period and ensured that opportunities for young people to participate were created.
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