POLYCOM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

OUR PROFILE

Introduction

Polycom Development Project is a women empowerment and girlchild welfare project started by a few women in the year 2001 after experiencing a challenging situation where an eleven year old girl was having a sexual relationship with a 38 year old married man. After a long discussion with this girl we realized that this girl did not understand completely why we were making big deal out of this situation. To her this was something normal that she had been doing for quite some time with different men. We saw the need to organize forums to talk to girls and give them a chance also to express themselves and ask questions on what they need to know about their welfare.

We approached a few girls who shared their different experiences and challenges they face with their parents, neighbours and community as a whole.

OUR VISION

Skilled, empowered young women especially girls, contributing positively to their communities / country’s development.

OUR MISSION

To assist young women/girls identify their potential, help them develop and tap into it in order that they can eventually manage their lives positively being self reliant and independent in decision making.

Objectives

  1. To create platforms where girls / women come together, share ideas and experiences and seek solutions for various challenges that affect them.
  2. Empower girls/women to do away with social acceptance of violence against them, stereotyped women’s positions among others that limit their potential.
  3. To build the self esteem of girls so as to manage their lives positively.
  4. To break barriers between the highly educated and less educated through joint forums and sharing.
  5. To document and share the voices of these girls/women through our own and other medias.

PREVIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS

Girls Rights Awareness & Protection Campaign.

Having presented the best situation analysis of the challenges girls face in slum settlements at a GOK/UNICEF workshop, we got together as three different groups working in Nairobi and conducted a one year campaign in 2004-2005 on rights awareness and protection campaign. We reached 3,000 girls in schools and out of schools with our advocacy.

Girls Speak Out Forums

With the help of friends and well wishers we have conducted 28 Girls Speak Out Forums for Kibera girls within Kibera where we have reached 1400 girls in schools and 300 out of school directly and more than 3,000 indirectly.

I am Beautiful Beauty Show

In August 2006 we organized a girls beauty show of a kind nabbed, “I am beautiful”, this was about helping the girls find their true selves, girls with different physical challenges contested and it was about self acceptance and not the outward beauty people talk about. It was about bringing out the inward beauty.We have since made it a habit and organizes these beauty shows at least once yearly.

Slum Woman’s Voice Day

With the help of Heinrich Boll Foundation, we have made it a culture to set a day aside every year to give the slum woman a chance to speak and meet with different development partners on the ground, it is about talking to be heard and know what who is doing on the ground for your welfare. This has been done as follows – 27th September 2007, 16th August 2008 and 30th October 2009.

Workshops / Seminars,

We have benefited from different workshop and seminars which have seen our members train as counselors, community health workers, peace builders e.t.c. We had also organized our own workshop for Kibera Women/ girls on women rights, violence against women, reproductive health issues and many others.

Ending Violence Against Women Campaign

Polycom Development Project have been part and parcel of this global campaign since its inception in Kenya. PDP are currently in the National Task Force and conducting many campaigns aimed at ending violence against women, girls and children.

Our “hii ni dhuluma” campaign has been rated one the best practice, it is about girls converging in market places and through a public address system educate the community on what violence is, what they dislike and how they want to be treated. They do this through discussions as they ask audiences questions on different common actions, e.g touching them against their wish or making mockery remarks whenever they pass.

“Silent voices emerging” is an initiative we started to reach out to young children to share through papers. They express themselves in papers and share with us, through this, we know what the children are going through and seek for possible help. It helped us to unveil and expose an 8 year old who was being abused by some neighbor.

Sanitary Towel Distribution

We have made it a habit of distributing sanitary towels whenever we have a GSO meeting or if we get them from well wishers. The most remarkable one was in April when we brought 850 Kibera girls only together at KibraAcademy. We distributed 1400 sanitary towels donated by World Visions.

We have been distributing sanitary towels donated by well wishers during our Girls Speak Out Forums.

Girls Rescue / Education

We have rescued upto 35 girls from different types of abuses 12 being sexual abuses. Through our networks, we have managed to enroll hundreds of poor girls in different secondary schools. Currently, we have 3 girls in KiberaGirlsSoccerAcademy and 8 at St. Alloycius Gonzaga Secondary schools fully sponsored. We also have 6 girls and 3 young men doing their vocational training at KAG and Olympic School of hairdressing under the sponsorship of World Vision.

We had a life skill training for young girls and boys sponsored by World Vision that lasted for one week in March 2009, those who attended we aged 9 to 11 years old.

Community Events

We have joined the world in celebrating the International Women’s Day for five years now, We also join with other stakeholders on board to celebrate other national and international days e.g Day of the African Chile, World AIDs Day, International Peace Day and candle light commemoration.

Talking Boxes

Due to the concerns we have been receiving from the children during the girls speak out forums, we came us with a project to help us learn more about the workable interventions on girlchild issues, we introduced talking boxes to various schools. The boxes are currently in 10 schools and the contents collected and documented every week.

FUTURE PLANS

We look forward to:-

  1. Starting Girls Speak Out Clubs in schools and Communities for girls who don’t go to school.
  2. Setting up a resource centre with library and networked for the girls and also ensuring computer literacy among girls/ young women living in slum areas.
  3. Nurturing hidden talents among girls and women of Kibera through establishments of various talent search initiatives and tournaments where different presents can be won to given inspirations to others.
  4. Holding talks on every hot issues/news touching on the lives of the girlchild.
  5. Starting income generating activities and promoting group loan and saving for both girls in school and out of schools to promote self reliance and responsibility among the girls.

PLANNED ACTIVITIES YEAR 2011

We have two major programmes for the year 2011.

Community launch for the African Womans Decade on 8th March 2011 here in Kibera. We are looking forward to having various build up activities ahead of the launch. The activities will involve community forums for each of the 14 villages of Kibera slums. The activities will bring together 100 women at each session who will be engaged in house training on the 10 themes of the African Womans Decade.

Equity Bank will be charged with the point on poverty eradication the approach being the minimum/manageable loans they give to their customers, importance of bank savings versus phone/MFI savings.

We also look forward to establishing

ACTIVITY / WHEN / TARGET GROUP / TARGETED PARTNERS
Distribution of Sanitary towels / Continuous / Girls in & Out of School Living in Kibera Slums /
  1. Individuals
  2. Coop orates
  3. NGOs

Girls Extravaganza / School Holidays
April – August – December / Girls in boarding school – Secondary School /
  1. Local Artists
  2. Pamoja FM
  3. Cooperates
  4. Local & International NGOs

Sexual Gender Based Programmes / Continuous / Girls & Boys in and out of school / Pathfinder International APHIA II Project
Local CBO’s
Girls Speak Out Talks / Monthly / Girls & Parents /
  1. Individuals
  2. Coop orates
  3. NGOs

Day of the African Child celebrations – out door activity / 16th June / All children in and out of school /
  1. Divisional Children Officer
  2. Schools
  3. Individuals
  4. Coop orates
  5. NGOs

Slum Woman’s Voice Day / 28th August 2010 / Kibera Women /
  1. Heinrich Boll Foundation

Slum SHE Newsletter / Quarterly / Women/girls living in different slum settlements /
  1. Individuals
  2. Coop orates
  3. NGOs

Behaviour Change Communication through sports, PET and Beauty shows / Periodically / Women/girls living in different slum settlements /
  1. Individuals
  2. Coop orates
  3. NGOs