In the seven years that Kivulini has been active in Tanzania,
much has changed. There is a more positive political climate and willingness to
address Domestic violence. There is also openness amongst community members to
discuss and address domestic violence.
Internally, we have just completed a period of steady growth and
have had considerable achievements during the years 2004-2007 covering our first
strategic plan. We have reached unprecedented numbers of women and men in Mwanza
region and now receive regular requests to conduct training for other
organisations. Kivulini has made substantial contributions to the improvement
of the position of women in Mwanza and to the understanding of Domestic Violence
in Tanzania.
2004-2007 has also been a learning time for Kivulini. We moved
beyond domestic violence to implement a number of economic empowerment projects
which managed to reach and benefit thousands of women in many different ways.
This was a notable achievement on increasing women’s economic autonomy and self
esteem. Essentially, in Tanzania, “A fundamental obstacle to the elimination of
gender inequalities has proved to be in the sexual division of labour at the
domestic level. It is argued that other empowerment strategies like campaign
against domestic violence are likely to be more effective only if accompanied by
policies to increase women’s economic autonomy and self esteem. Thus, for the
coming years, Kivulini aims to replicate the successes by building capacities of
other CBOs and NGOs in reaching more women with economic empowerment
programmes.
Around Legal Aid Services, the organisation has faced some
challenges on increased number of clients which rose by 75% from 30 clients in a
week. We realize an effective and sustainable strategy will be to build the
capacity of paralegals and ward tribunals to support women in the community.
This strategy is inline with MKUKUTA Goal 4: Rights of the poor and vulnerable
groups are protected and promoted in the justice system. The government aims to
increase per cent of paralegals in the districts. Kivulini aims to contribute
to benefit more women in the community rather than continuing bearing the duty
of providing legal aid and social counselling at Kivulini current centre which
is overwhelmed with increased demand of which Kivulini alone can not meet.
The vulnerability of child domestic workers to domestic violence
is threatening the well being of especially girls. Kivulini aims in this plan to
strengthen the capacities of community Based groups, local government leaders,
facilitate the establishment of the Association of Child domestic workers and
Responsible employers to respond and prevent violence against child domestic
workers.
In integrating these three changes, for this strategic plan we
have decided to revisit our original vision and mandate.
This consolidated strategic focus is on “preventing Domestic
Violence”. We are taking our core programme and expanding it to reach more
people, but also focussing the activities towards better, more effective
prevention. In this new strategy we place responsibility for providing service
at the hands of the Government as the key duty bearer as well as commit to
working with other civil society service providers to strengthen their capacity
to meet the needs of women experiencing violence. In addition, we also
acknowledge that violence does not just happen, but is engendered in societal
norms and practices, we endeavour to tackle those root causes of violence as a
first step towards prevention. We also realise that we alone cannot reach as
many people so have dedicated time and resources to identifying and working with
others to achieve the mission.
Dr. Joseph Kavit
Chairperson board of Directors
