Responding to issues of gender inequality in communities that are experiencing poor socio-economic services is hard enough. With the impact of COVID-19, many organisations would have to double, if not treble their efforts in order to meet up with the challenges of the present times.
Womn’s rights organisations and gender non-conforming groups did not see the magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 coming, and hence were unprepared for the disruptions that came with the pandemic. They are not adequately structured to anticipate or adapt to a huge change in context such as presented by the current pandemic. Without emergency funds, organisations have had no choice but to get creative both in their interventions and fundraising efforts.
Combining effort and resources between two or more organisations have become a common approach in responding to COVID-19 with many womn’s rights organisations and gender non-conforming groups across Africa. It seems to be the sustainable way to pull resources together to address the impact of COVID-19 in the lives of vulnerable groups and communities.
The collaboration of UAF-Africa’s grantee partners—Making A Difference Sisters and SUPERB CBO—demonstrates this succinctly. The two feminist, youth-led organisations combined their skills and resources to respond to COVID-19 in Kenya. Making A Difference Sisters and SUPERB CBO are young womn-led organisations working with young womn in Kibera, Kenya. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the largest urban slum in Africa. Being among the few community-based organisations working with young womn and girls in Kibera, and with very little financial resources, Make A Difference Sisters and SUPERB CBO jointly applied for an Urgent Action Fund-Africa COVID-19 rapid response grant in order to combine effort, expertise and financial resources to address the eminent challenges facing young womn in Kibera.
In the wake of COVID-19 in Kenya and the lockdown order imposed by the government to curb the spread of the virus, Making A Difference Sisters and SUPERB CBO started receiving a significant number of reports of violence against womn—including rape and domestic violence, loss of livelihoods and break out of fights due to huge demands for social services such as access to water and sanitation. Young womn and girls in Kibera have been coping with many challenges ranging from social marginalisation to sexual and gender-based violence. The COVID-19 pandemic further worsened these challenges, placing womn and young girls in a more precarious position and deepening the existing gender inequalities for womn and girls living in the slum.
Some of these include womn and girls’ responsibility of catering for the family by providing basic home needs such as preparing meals, doing household chores and attending to sick relatives. These responsibilities make them more vulnerable to the virus, especially when they have little or no knowledge of COVID-19 and how to protect themselves due to the peculiarity of their environment. The pandemic also exerted a significant toll on Kibera womn’s livelihoods: majority of them are caregivers and sole family breadwinners who cannot earn any source of income without leaving their homes in search of casual jobs.
Being locked-down at home also made some of the womn susceptible to abuse by their partners. Making A Difference Sisters and SUPERB CBO received increased reports of sexual violence and exploitation, teenage and unplanned pregnancies, early marriages, unsafe abortions and sexual gender-based violence. Government provided services and campaigns were less focused on people living in informal settlements like Kibera where the congested housing set up put community members at higher risk of infection. Essential items, such as menstrual products, access to healthcare services, and Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) information became unavailable under the strain of the pandemic. Sexual and reproductive health services and commodities are often overlooked in times of crisis, yet womn continue to require family planning, menstrual health supplies, and maternal healthcare.
Through UAF-Africa’s rapid response grant for COVID-19, the two organisations embarked on a massive COVID-19 awareness campaign through a popular community radio in Kibera. They provided information on SRHR, covering topics on menstrual health, hygiene and sanitation, and protective measures against COVID-19 as well as information on dealing with sexual and gender-based violence. With the two organisations bringing their SRHR, advocacy and mental health programming expertise together, the radio listeners from Kibera were able to call presenters to ask questions and receive information on what to do to protect themselves from COVID-19 or to get information on mental health services and referrals to relevant institutions for further assistance.
The current reality of many womn’s rights and gender non-conforming groups is that there has been significant reduction in their resources long before the COVID-19 pandemic; the disruptions of the pandemic only made it worse. Also, most womn’s rights and gender non-conforming groups in Africa operate at local levels. Their organisations are structured in ways that allow them to only pay salaries of the few staff members they have and where they have a running grant, it is usually meant for pre-designed programmes that funders have agreed to. COVID-19 has definitely triggered a funding crisis for many womn’s rights and gender non-conforming groups in Africa. As ruthless as this might seem, there is also an opportunity for funders and the philanthropic community to find new ways to tackle global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic that impacts all fabrics of human existence in no small way. This can include allowing flexibility in the grants that partners already have for repurposing to address COVID-19 related issues among other considerations.
