KCDF and partners support local development programs

Kisumu

Thursday, August 2023,

KNA by Robert Ojwang’

The Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF) in collaboration with other partners is currently implementing the Giving for Change (GFC) program, modeled to enhance inclusive and citizen-centered development.

The initiative spearheaded by partners from Kenya, Burkina Faso, Brazil, Ethiopia, Palestine, Mozambique and Ghana seeks to promote community-led development by harnessing domestic resources, to increase local project ownership and strengthen the capacities of communities.

During a stakeholders meeting in Kisumu County, the KCDF Executive Director, Grace Maingi, said that the GFC program has already yielded remarkable outcomes in the Lakeside County since its launch in 2021.

Through the program, she observed, KCDF has successfully implemented various projects in the Lakeside County in partnership with various civil society organizations and social movements, that have helped the locals actively participate in community development processes.

“KCDF invests in enhancing organized community-led initiatives to create a firm basis for sustainable development and social justice. We believe that systemic and lasting change is possible when communities initiate and drive their development agenda,” Maingi stated.

She pointed out that the initiative supports the communities to work with governments and other non-state actors, to harness and grow local resources, to access basic needs and services with little external support.

One of the GFC program's major milestones includes, the establishment of Okuto Community Library in West Seme Ward, Kisumu County, through a local fundraising initiative, organized by Aniga Women Initiative Community-Based Organization.

“The Okuto community presented a pressing need for a library, as the school had recorded below-average performances, which they felt could be improved with the instillation of a reading culture among the pupils,” Maingi explained.

The community fundraiser, she revealed, raised Sh.1 million both in cash and in kind, while KCDF donated an additional Sh.1 million, to build and equip the Okuto Community Library, which also serves as a modern Community Resource Center.

In addition, KCDF has partnered with Nyalenda Young Turks, to implement the End Sexual and Gender-Based violence (SGBV) Initiative in the informal settlements, to ensure a safe community that enables girls and women, to realize their potential.

The drive also targets to amplify community voices in governance, through capacity building of girls, women, commercial sex workers, teachers, men, civil society organizations, women’s rights organizations, and grassroots youth organizations to promote positive social norms and advocate for duty bearers and other stakeholders to address factors that promote SGBV and for the provision of quality health services for survivors.

Stigmata Tenga from the Africa Philanthropy Network in Tanzania, said that the GFC program is designed to disrupt the way development is done by enabling communities to be at the center of their development.

“It is designed to bring people to the core as key actors in their own

Development, use resources around them to drive the change they want to see in their localities,” Tenga stated.

The Executive Director at the Global Fund for Community Foundations in South Africa, Jenny Hodgson highlighted some of the misgivings in the current aid system saying: “The decades of international development aid that has been going to countries in the global south, has little to show as impact, with as low as only 2% of the total aid going directly to the local organizations. More than 97% goes through intermediary NGOs.”

Giving for Change, she asserted, seeks to change the narrative and illustrate that there is adequate local capacity and expertise to manage resources and implement solutions for communities' prosperity.

Courtesy ; K. N. A