Siasa Place Kenya

Programmes

DEVOLUTION & PARTNERSHIPS DEVELOPMENT

FUATILIA AHADI

Promise tracker tool developed and working: The program managed to develop a tracking tool and supported county-based youth organizations with training on tracking budget processes, the training helped to improve youth  advocacy skills. From the training, the youth improved their understanding of issues identification and advocacy strategy development.

Mentorship for the county-based youth organizations initiated: The program initiated a mentorship program for six county-based youth organizations, including Ajenda Kenya (Mombasa), Girls to Women (Kakamega), Tilil Environmental Group (Kericho), and Mukuru Social Justice Center (Nairobi). The mentorship aimed to assist these county-based youth organizations in enhancing their structures, ensuring effective implementation tracking, creating public awareness, and holding the government accountable for its promises.

IMARA AFRICA FELLOWSHIP

Imara Africa is a one year leadership program being implemented in partnership between Siasa Place, Africa Youth Leadership Forum, and Mark Appeal. The program brings together young people from across the country, with the aim of imparting the necessary knowledge and skills required in public service as ‘service’. By the end of the program, these young leaders will champion the culture of meaningful public participation and responsive National and County Governments. First cohort has 24 youth trained in policy.
For more information, check the website: www.imarafellowship.org 

DEFEND RECORD YAKO

Defend Record Yako is a pilot project seeking to promote collaboration between youth and the county government of Kericho in planning and execution of development plans within the respective wards. The project will be implemented within The County government of Kericho between January 2020 and December 2020 and targeting organized youth groups and Members of the County Assembly.

The project is expected to capacity-build youth leaders on tools and methods through which they can better organize around public participation in governance to build a better working relationship with the leaders hence creating an enabling environment for effective engagement between youth and County leaders.

STRENGTHENING THE POWER OF YOUTH VOICES

This program seeks to improve youth participation in the country with a focus in Nairobi, Kitui, Lamu, Kericho, Busia and Homa bay County. It intends to ensure that young people become part and parcel of the governance process. It will involve training community youth leaders, student leaders, social administrators and political party youth leagues as to how they can use their different platforms to increase youth participation in the 6 counties. It was also create different platforms for engagement between the youth and leaders in the countries such as community barazas, people dialogue forums both at the county and National level. The program will also help to identify governance concerns ammong young people and create a committee known as office of the citizen to follow up. Additionally it will support social media engagements on all the 6 counties on matters of governance.

TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS

OVOF RESEARCH

Siasa Place conducted research on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) as a barrier to women’s political participation, aiming to challenge the normalization of GBV by examining its influence on women’s involvement in political parties, the impact of political party policies, societal perceptions, government support and constitutional factors, as well as candidate safety preparedness. The study also aimed to identify and quantify gaps in policies and develop a model guideline policy for political parties.

Nalafem Handbook

Siasa Place created an experience-sharing initiative that celebrated the journeys of young women who vied for political positions in Kenya. By providing a platform for them to share their stories, challenges, and wins, this initiative seeked to encourage other young women to actively engage in politics, break barriers, and contribute to positive change in their communities and the country. The initiative targeted 10 young women between the ages of 18 to 35 who have an interest in politics, specifically those who vied in the 2022 General Elections and are still considering running for political positions. 

WOMEN AT WEB

With increased internet penetration, there are more Kenyans engaging online on diverse issues, however little is being done to increase women’s participation on online platforms, or ensuring that those engaging are safe and making an impact in their fields of expertise. A workshop that was exclusively for women with intermediary knowledge of social media usage was held in Nairobi on August 31st 2018, and focused on Digital Literacy, Content Creation, Digital Storytelling, Understanding Digital Ecosystem, Citizen Journalism and Security online. A total of 40 women were trained during this workshop.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT & ENGAGEMENT

WritAfrica Mentorship Program

WritAfrica Mentorship Program, supported by Hewlett Foundation, seeks to improve storytelling skills among young people. The mentorship program was initiated to address the low writing and reading culture among young people in the country and is being implemented in three counties namely: Nairobi, Kakamega and Mombasa. The program seeks to identify budding writers, spoken word artists and illustrators and connect them to mentors who help them harness their skills, as they create content that speaks to different governance issues and thus carry out social accountability on governance issues. Additionally, the program seeks to create a platform for engagement at the community level, as they identify issues and develop advocacy strategies to help solve them while having the process documented.