Widows Project
The Widows project is a five-year project funded by Norwegian Pentecostal Mission (NPM) and operates in Siaya County. It is aimed at addressing violation of women’s rights by being forced into widowhood traditions like widow cleansing and forced inheritance. Other than the women’s rights violations through the traditional rituals, the widows also face other challenges like property confiscation, discrimina- tion, extreme poverty, single-handed parenting, denied freedom of expression and even movement, psychosocial distress, etc. The project, whose overall objective is to empower the widows to live in dignity and freedom from the harmful traditional practices, hasthe widows as the main target group as the name suggests, but also targets other community members;
The Widows Project adopts the training seminars and workshops strategy to strengthen the widows’ capacity to be able to resist rights violations and social abuse and in turn stand up for others. The widows are further capacitated on legal rights, psychosocial healing and economic productivity.
Other than the widows, the project also targets the youth, local administrators, religious leaders, cultural elders and the in-laws. The tabulation below illustrates the registered project’s target person and their numbers.
2024 Achievements
As a result of FPFK and partnerships, Widows in Luo community are living in freedom from all forms of retrogressive widowhood beliefs and practices in Siaya County. Even as the project works in the selected locations in Siaya County, the end result is to see the target participants; widows living free from any form of retrogressive practices. The project has made steps towards achieving the planned outcomes. The widows are now claiming their rights as any other Kenyan citizen, healing from the poor mental health that some of them were found in due to the widowhood related challenges and partly due to trauma and unprocessed grief that they carried around unknowingly. The widows are also on their journey towards attaining alternative sources of income with 20 of them now enrolled as apprentices with entrepreneurs in their communities to acquire skills of their choice; even as the legal environment is surely changing to their favor. The activities, which were planned and conduct- ed in 2024 went a long way in contributing to the changes that are currently being experienced. 1800 participants were directly reached with the activities, who by extension reached 10,800 community members with the project information.
Out Come 1: Targeted widows are responsible and claiming their rights in Siaya county
The widows have become bolder after shedding off fear of suffering in silence when their rights as human beings are being violated. The widows have discovered the path to pursuing justice. This is attributed to the conscience raising forums that increased their knowledge on their constitutional and human rights. The story of one of the direct beneficia- ries among others helps the project to prove that this outcome is a reality
Outcome 2: Targeted widows are safe with good mental health
The trauma healing sessions has seen 65% of widows (600) having reported significant change towards good mental health, healing journeys especially to those who exhibited trauma signs. Many have confessed not having been aware of the serious problems until they went through the debrief sessions. The easy access to psychosocial support within their locations and groups, can also be largely attributed to steady trauma healing among them. Alice Auma a widow from West Alego testified in one of the workshops as she thanked FPFK Widows project for coming to intervene in their lives
One day, my daughter told me that she has observed for a while I am lately calm and do not explode on her whenever she makes a mistake as I usually did. That was when I learnt that all along, I have been harboring a lot of pain without knowing how to help myself and that I had been letting out my frustrations on the children. The trauma healing forums really helped me.”
Outcome 3: Targeted widows and affected youths have stable alternative sources of income
The economic empowerment seminars launched in 2024 reached all the registered widows with the information on how to attain economic freedom. This pushed them to organize themselves in groups and now 25 widows’ groups are so far formally registered with the county’s social services department by the end of 2024. 30 individual widows distributed across all the project areas, were propelled to start personal businesses after the entrepreneurship seminars. 20 project participants were registered for the skills acquisition program as livelihoods sources to enhance their econom- ic lives. 10 of them began acquiring tailoring and dressmaking skills while 10 on hairdressing skills. The project reports good results under this outcome.
Outcome 4 Existing enabling policy environment for widows in the county.
Meanwhile, the favorable legal environment that the project has set in the project areas through sensitization of the relevant stakehold- ers cannot be ignored. Siaya County is slowly changing to support the widows although the project areas are responding more positively than the areas the project has not reached. Various community members around are able to notice that the widows are being regarded with a lot of concern and are following suit. The Siaya County Widows Social Protection Bill, which the project initiated its preparation, has already been adopted by the Siaya County’s Govern- ment and is only pending discussion in the County Assembly to become a law.
A widower approached the project staff in one of the forums asking why the FPFK Widows Project has not thought to also support the widowers to ensure they are respected in the community like the widows.
The Assistant County Commissioner (ACC) Madam Anne cautioned the perpetrators who knowingly violate the widows’ rights especially through grabbing their property in one of the public forums, where Ukwala stakeholders were invited, warning them of dire consequenc- es should they be brought before her.