Umande Trust

Today Umande held the first of many meetings for the Women's Voices project champions. The 20 women champions met with some of the Umande staff at the Harlequins Suites Hotel. The meeting started by having all the women introduce themselves, followed by an introduction of Umande Trust, and some of the other projects that the organization is working on. After the introductions, each woman was given a questionnaire which asked questions about their local government, how involved the women have been in the local government in the past, and the positive and negative aspects of their local government. After reading the questionnaires it was clear that most of the women in the room felt like they did not have a voice in their community, or no one was listening. That is why this program, Women's Voices ICT Choices is so important for women in the community. This project teaches and encourages women to share their thoughts and ideas and gives them leadership roles within their own com

Umande Trust is in the process of launching a new project that aims to increase the representation of Women's voices when making decisions about their own communities, specifically within Kibera. To do this, Women Champions will be selected from the community, and these women will be trained to be liaisons between local governments and the community they are representing. The Women Champions will provide other women in the community with relevant information and facilitate group discussions on the issues women want to discuss and share ideas about. On Friday, October 28th a meeting was held at the Tosha One biocenter in Kibera to discuss the Women's Voices ICT Choices project and specifically, how to choose the women champions. Project representatives from Umande Trust lead the meeting, and it was attended by around 30 community members and representatives from other local organizations. At the meeting, they discussed the project, and who exactly the women champions would be.