Sonke Gender Justice partnered with Save the Children on the SIDA programme to strengthen the capacity of Civil Society Organisations, CSO’s on implementing Gender Transformative Approaches, GTA for children’s rights and parenting by 2026. The program which now runs from 2022 and ends at the end of this year, works with CSOs based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa.
Sonke hosted a five day training session for fourteen CSOs in last year, capacitating them on GTA and how they can mainstream it in their respective organisations. Sonke also provided technical support to two CSO’s INERELA and the African Platform for Social Protection, that introduced GTA amongst their stakeholders and board members. The aim being to kickstart the process of orienting partners and their respective board members to plan for implementation on the ground.
According to Sonke’s Assistant Program Coordinator Nomhle Soni, ‘’the goal of the program is: a strong civil society that demands and supports the fulfilment of children’s rights, holding states to account and mobilizing and empowering children and their communities. Sonke’s goal, in response to that of SCI is to strengthen the capacity of these organisations on this methodology, we were considered for this opportunity as we are seen to be a gender expert in this humanitarian field’’.
As the partnership draws to a close by the end of 2024, Sonke has conducted monitoring, evaluation and support visits to the CSOs who participated in the training, to gauge whether they used GTA to review their programmes and the impact thereof if any, as well as to create opportunity for further collaborations for technical support and exchange learning beyond the project period.
‘’So far we have visited South African based organizations REPSSI and INERELA, in Kenya, the East African Child Rights Network and Ugandan based Pan African Human Rights Defenders Network’’ said Dr Deliwe Menyuko, Sonke’s Regional Programmes Coordinator for Child Rights, Parenting and Mencare.
During Sonke’s monitoring visit to INERELA, the Regional Coordinator Bobo Chazireni, indicated that the engagement with Sonke was critical for the organization as they are also restructuring, so they are relying on GTA methodologies in this regard. ‘’During our organisational capacity assessment process, we noticed that there are gaps in terms of gender disparities. At board level it was also noted that there is a need to strengthen policies around gender issues. In the upper management we are still looking for female leadership. We have policies which guide recruitment of staff members, they provide equal opportunities for all. The idea is to strengthen this process in line with gender transformation. We have also noted the importance of empowerment to be linked to gender parity processes’’ he said.
Ugandan based Pan African Human Rights Defenders Network facilitates programmes using the GTA, as the training from Sonke strengthened their work. ‘’They indicated that they would like for Sonke to conduct training for the whole staff of Uganda and other offices in the region, as they have a lot to learn from us’’ said Dr Deliwe Menyuko, Sonke’s Regional Programmes Coordinator: Child Rights, Parenting and Mencare.
East African Child Rights Network Executive Director Benedict Omillo, believes gender transformation is not an event but a process, ‘’ I believe a number our member countries and partners still needs capacitation on GTA, and how to approach it from a child rights lens, which is a missing link, we are now at a time where a good program should be evaluated according to how it embeds and applies this GTA across the continent’’.
Sonke seeks to ensure that all CSOs within this project are gender transformative or at least are making efforts in that direction, as per requirements of SIDA.
