These are five of our favourite e² equality moments of 2021, which were made possible with your invaluable support:
1. Our successful 160 Girls Virtual Justice Clubs, which a teacher said “kept [their] school from becoming a maternity ward during the pandemic.”
2. The 160 Girls Justice Journal: VJC students, teachers and police promoted girls’ equality in their communities. One leader shared that this made her “feel like a local human rights hero!”
3. With the Kenya National Police Service, we expanded 160 Girls training, bringing a human-rights focus to defilement investigations to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable for their sexual violence. Inspector Daniel Wera, 160 Girls NPS Faculty said: “The 160 Girls training will remain in the Kenya history as the springboard for the end to Police inaction in defilement investigations, and an end to the climate of impunity in sexual violence investigations. As a trainer, I am greatly impressed by the positive feedbacks that has so far been received by the trained Officers in Charge of Stations.”
4. An immediate impact from the first 4 NPS 160 Girls trainings: trainees “have been enlightened by the 160 Girls” and their “attitude has changed”, documenting “prompt, proper, effective and professional investigations”, including the speedy investigation and arrest of an uncle who had repeatedly raped his twin 8 year-old nieces.
5. The creation and implementation of a human rights evaluation methodology to measure the concrete impact of the 160 Girls scale up. Baseline research was completed, despite some challenges including a suspicious Head Teacher chasing our research team from a school during the research exercise, despite the exercise having received all necessary approval (the Head Teacher and school are now under investigation).
6. Bonus Favorite Moment – achieving equality change despite COVID-19 restrictions! We are so grateful for the commitment of our invaluable partners, donors/funders, volunteers, and staff, who make e²’s unique human rights work possible.
There is still more equality work to do: scaling up 160 Girls in Kenya, expanding training to reach all 80,000 police, and growing the VJC programming.
Thank you for your wonderful support of e²’s unique human rights work, making girls’ and women’s rights real. Wishing you a happy and healthy 2022, and looking forward to updating you on more e² progress in the new year.
