It is therefore our mandate to assist in championing efforts to increase women’s participation and inclusion at all levels of decision-making. Social movements are purposeful, organized, with the goal of pushing for desirable change, giving women voice, or gathering for a common purpose to influence meaningful change.

To address indigenous women’s marginalization and lack of access to resources, women’s movements that advocate for indigenous women’s right to leadership positions must be mobilized.

For nearly 5 years, Samburu Women Trust has organized quarterly meetings with Indigenous women from the 14 ASAL counties to network, discuss their challenges, devise strategies, and build a strong, vibrant movement capable of lobbying and advocating for their own issues at all levels of decision-making.

The discussions also center on the importance of indigenous women’s effective participation and inclusion in leadership in order to streamline policies and development projects that include indigenous people’s needs.

They also provide updates on the successes and failures of the interventions they have implemented in their respective communities.

These meetings also spawned the Coalition of Indigenous Women movement, which aims to promote indigenous women’s inclusion at the local level by equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need to effectively participate in ongoing national, regional, and international discussions such as the NGEC, KNHRC, Pastoralists Parliamentary Group (PPG), ACHPR, UNCSW, UNPFII, and EMPRIP.

In order to strengthen and solidify the indigenous women’s movement, SWT is hosting a roundtable discussion with CIWO members and PARAN Alliance to share updates by county and plan for upcoming conferences in 2022.